Visitor arrivals in Macao totalled 8,875,757 for the first quarter of 2024, according to the Statistics and Census Service (known by the Portuguese initials DSEC). The figures are slightly lower than the rough estimate of 9 million made by tourism officials last week.
The figure is an almost 80 percent increase on the same period last year and represents nearly 86 percent of the comparable figure in 2019 – the last year before the three-year Covid-19 pandemic put a brake on travel.
Same-day visitors showed a marked increase, more than doubling to 4,791,721 and greatly outnumbering overnight visitors, who totalled 4,084,036. The average length of stay decreased slightly to 1.2 days.
[See more: Over a million tourists visited Macao during the Easter and Ching Ming holidays]
Mainland China remains by far the biggest source of visitors, supplying 6,291,912 of the total, with almost half of those coming from the Greater Bay Area. Visitors from Hong Kong (1,817,903) and Taiwan (181,916) showed 21 percent and almost 168 percent year-on-year growth respectively
Foreign visitors stood at 584,026 for the first quarter, or nearly 70 percent of the comparable figure from 2019. From the Asian market, visitors from South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand showed notable growth. Among long-haul markets, visitors from the USA rebounded to 66.5 percent of their 2019 levels.
More than a third of Macao’s visitors arrive via the Border Gate checkpoint (3,337,101), while a quarter arrive via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (2,220,120).
