Macao welcomed around 162,000 visitor arrivals on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year yesterday, a figure that is below the average of 174,756 travellers that came into the city during the initial five days of the festive period from 29 January to 2 February.
Compared with Saturday and Sunday, Monday’s result marks a decline of roughly 26 percent and 14 percent respectively. In a report yesterday, Macao Daily News drew attention to a noticeable decline in the number of visitors entering Macao via the Border Gate – the city’s most popular checkpoint.
Public Security Police Force (PSP) data cited by local media indicates that Macao registered around 3.69 million checkpoint crossings – both inbound and outbound – between 28 January and 2 February, or an increase of 9 percent year-on-year.
[See more: CNY visitor arrivals haven’t met expectations, yet]
Some 1.01 million visitors entered the SAR during that same six-day period, a decline of 6.1 percent year-on-year, according to provisional data from the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO). The greatest number of visitors was recorded from 31 January to 2 February, with the totals for each of these three days beating the government’s daily forecast of 185,000.
The highest total number of visitor arrivals took place on 31 January, with the figure hitting 219,092, an increase of 9.1 percent over the same period last year. This was followed by 1 February and 2 February, which had totals of 218,367 (up 11.7 percent) and 189,123 (up 6.9 percent) respectively.
By source markets, mainland tourists saw a decline of 8.3 percent year-on-year, with a total of 760,393 visitors. Hong Kong visitors also fell in comparison to last year, dropping by 3.2 percent to 184,494.
