Tourist arrival numbers around the New Year period in Macao are expected to be greater than the figures recorded over Christmas, according to the president of the Macau Leisure Tourism Services Innovation Association, Wong Fai.
He told local media that there was a significant volume of hotel bookings and enquiries for the coming long weekend.
“We always organise a lot of end-of-year countdown activities,” Wong said. “Since the border restrictions have been lifted, there have also been many activities such as the light festival, themed events and sports events…[which are all] effective ways of attracting tourists.”
[See more: The long Christmas weekend drew in almost 440,000 tourists]
Wong also made reference to the high visitor numbers over the Christmas period, which saw approximately 360,000 arrivals between 23 and 25 December.
Data shows that the number of visitors reached a peak of 133,603 visitors on 23 December, before dropping to 120,000 and 108,500 visitors on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day respectively.
The New Year boost to the tourism industry could help Macao fulfil official predictions of 28 million visitors in 2023. However, even if the target is achieved it is still only 71 percent of the total for pre-pandemic 2019, which saw 39.6 million visitors flocking into the city.
