Macao welcomed 11.6 million visitors in the first half of 2023, according to the head of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes.
The figure compares to the 20.28 million visitors recorded in the first half of 2019, the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to Macau Post Daily, Senna Fernandes said that the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong markets – by far Macao’s two biggest sources of visitors – had respectively recovered to 60 percent and 90 percent of their pre-pandemic levels.
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She conceded, however, that the number of foreign tourists was only a fifth of the pre-pandemic total.
The local government is keen to lure more long-haul visitors to the territory in order to reduce dependence on the domestic market. However, data compiled by the Statistics and Census Service shows that foreign passport holders represented less than four percent of the visitors to Macao during the first five months of 2023.
Of that fraction, by far the largest number came from countries that are also the sources of the territory’s migrant worker communities: the Philippines (89,047) and Indonesia (43,241). The great majority were same-day visitors.
