Macao welcomed 724,800 visitors during the six-day period encompassing the Christmas season and other public holidays from 20 to 25 December. That’s according to preliminary figures from the city’s Public Security Police cited by GGR Asia.
The provisional data indicates that the average daily number of visitor arrivals during the festive stretch stood at approximately 120,800. The highest daily total was recorded on 20 December, the public holiday marking the establishment of the Macao Special Administrative Region, when arrivals reached 149,484.
While Christmas is not an official public holiday in Macao’s main tourist market, mainland China, it is a key holiday period in Hong Kong, the city’s second most important source of visitors. Boxing Day, or 26 December, is also a public holiday in Hong Kong.
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The police did not provide a breakdown of visitors by place of origin during the six days, GGA Asia says. However, the majority of tourists entered Macao through either the Border Gate checkpoint or the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
The visitor numbers represent a considerable increase compared to the corresponding period last year, when Macao welcomed 625,154 visitors. That time also saw China’s President Xi Jinping in Macao from 18 to 20 December to attend events marking the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover from Portuguese administration to China.
Macao has already seen its 2025 visitor arrivals exceed last year’s full-year figure. The city recorded approximately 36.5 million visitors in the first 11 months of 2025, up to 30 November, according to earlier remarks from Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, the director of the Macao Government Tourism Office. This surpasses last year’s full-year figure of 34.9 million.
