Macau’s number of Japanese visitor arrivals dropped 21.6 percent year-on-year in October to 25,562, the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) has announced Friday.
Local tourism industry sources contacted by The Macau Post Daily attributed the sharp decline to the ongoing Sino-Japanese row over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.
The central government says that the Japanese-controlled islands have been an inalienable part of China since ancient times. Japan seized the islands in 1895.
In the first 10 months of the year, the number of Japanese visitor arrivals rose 9.1 percent year-on-year to 344,629.
Macau recorded 2.35 million visitor arrivals last month, down 1.2 percent year-on-year.
Same-day visitors accounted for 52.5 percent of all visitors last month.
In the first 10 months of the year, the number of visitor arrivals rose a mere 0.8 percent year-on-year to 23.2 million.
In October, visitors’ average length stay amounted to one day.
Visitors from Asia accounted for 97.1 percent of all visitor arrivals last month.
Mainlanders made up 61.5 percent of all visitor arrivals in October, totalling 1.45 million. The number of mainland visitors dropped 1.4 percent year-on-year.
Hongkongers accounted for 24.1 percent of all visitors in October, reaching 566,342, up 1.4 percent.
While the number of Indian visitor arrivals fell 11.5 percent year-on-year to 12,482 last month, the number from South Korea rose 26 percent to 34,502.
Among all major visitor segments, visitors from Thailand recorded the highest growth rate last month, at 30.2 percent, reaching 24,409.
The Macau-Bangkok route is one of the most popular routes provided by the local airport.(macaunews)
