Macao set a new monthly record for visitor arrivals in August, government researchers say, with 3,651,731 recorded – topping the figure of 3,623,116 registered during the same month in pre-pandemic 2019. The figure represents a year-on-year increase of 13.3 percent and month-on-month growth of 20.9 percent, according to the Statistics and Census Service (known by its Portuguese initials DSEC).
Same-day visitors (2,041,362) and overnight visitors (1,610,369) grew by 23.4 percent and 2.7 percent respectively year-on-year. Meanwhile, the average length of stay of all visitors shortened by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.1 days, but that of overnight visitors rose by 0.1 day to 2.3 days.
As regards source of visitors, visitors from mainland China increased by 18.5 percent year-on-year to 2,752,322. Those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (1,466,190) grew by 9.3 percent; visitors from the nine mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area (1,346,743) went up by 21.3 percent. Arrivals from Taiwan (73,629) rose by 26.7 percent year-on-year, but those from Hong Kong (663,449) decreased by 6.8 percent.
[See more: Macao’s visitor levels boom during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday]
International visitors in August rose by 25.5 percent year-on-year to 162,331 representing more than 75 percent of the August 2019 level. From the Southeast Asian markets, visitors from the Philippines (35,180), Malaysia (7,647) and Singapore (5,806) went up by 31.7 percent, 4.9 percent and 1.9 percent year-on-year respectively. From the Northeast Asian markets, visitors from South Korea (36,923) and Japan (10,582) rose by 61.4 percent and 24.8 percent. As regards long-haul markets, visitors from the USA (10,295) recorded a rise of 18.2 percent year-on-year.
Analysed by checkpoint, the number of visitor arrivals by air (282,733) and by land (2,986,134) grew by 24.7 percent and 16 percent. Visitor arrivals by sea (382,864) decreased by 9.2 percent year-on-year.
In the first eight months of 2024, the number of visitor arrivals grew by 32.7 percent to 23,392,903, corresponding to more than 85 percent of the figure recorded in the same period in 2019. In addition, the number of international visitors (1,503,936) returned to almost 69 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
