Macao welcomed 34.93 million visitor arrivals last year, a year-on-year increase of 23.6 percent or a recovery of 88.6 percent against the figures of pre-pandemic 2019. That’s according to Public Security Police (PSP) data published yesterday.
The total visitor arrivals exceed the government’s original target of 33 million, which was later revised to 34 million last November, and is in line with a forecast made by the chairman of the Travel Industry of Macau, Andy Wu.
Mainland Chinese accounted for 70.1 percent of the total number of visitors in 2024, with their numbers hitting 24.48 million, a rise of 28.6 percent year-on-year. Tourists from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other locations, meanwhile, represented 20.6 percent, 2.4 percent and 6.9 percent of the visitors entering Macao.
[See more: Nearly 730,000 visitors travelled to Macao during the Christmas break]
During the New Year holiday period, between 30 December and New Year’s Day, there were roughly 325,000 visitors travelling to Macao. On New Year’s Day, the SAR welcomed 109,000 visitors. The number of visitors during New Year’s Eve was similarly high, reaching a total of approximately 115,000.
Border crossings during the first day of 2025 also received a boost from the new permit arrangements for Zhuhai and Hengqin residents wishing to visit Macao, which were launched that day.
PSP data shows that as of 6 pm yesterday, 1,742 mainland residents used the so-called “one trip per week” permit to make trips to and from Macao. Meanwhile, 402 mainland residents employed a multiple-entry permit to make their way to the SAR.
