The first five days of the Lunar New Year holiday saw Macao clock 873,780 visitor arrivals amidst a total of 3.15 million border crossings, according to provisional figures from the Public Security Police Force.
So far, that’s an average of 174,756 visitor arrivals per day. In the lead up to the holiday, director of the Macao Government Tourism Office Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes said she expected an average of 185,000 people would visit the city per day over the eight-day period.
Friday, the third day of the holiday, has proved the busiest to date with 219,119 visitor arrivals. This was followed by Saturday, with 218,396 visitor arrivals; then Sunday with 189,158, Thursday with 172,783 and Wednesday with 131,896.
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Just under a third of border crossings – entries and exits – were made by Macao residents. Mainlanders were the biggest group, at 54 percent of the total. Less than 4 percent of the trips were made by foreign passport holders.
As expected, Macao’s main gateway with the mainland, Border Gate, saw by far the most traffic between Wednesday and Sunday. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was the next busiest port, followed by Qingmao, a smaller port designed to lessen the pressure on Border Gate.
The city’s hotels were anticipated to hit overall occupancy rates of between 90 and 95 percent during the holiday period, according to Cheung Kin Chung, the head of the Hoteliers and Innkeepers Association. Several of Macao’s luxury properties had already sold out of rooms for either the whole or half of the holiday in the lead-up to the Lunar New Year.
