A total of 3.02 million visitors came to Macao last month, representing a surge of 18.4 percent over June’s total. That’s according to the latest data from the Statistics and Census Service (known by its Portuguese initials DSEC).
When compared to the same month in 2023, July saw growth of 9.5 percent but the figure fell short of a complete post-pandemic recovery, being only 85.6 percent of the 3.53 million visitor arrivals that were reported in July 2019.
The largest sources of tourists remain overwhelmingly domestic. Just 173,000 visitors in July were from foreign countries – a rise of around 33 percent year-on-year but only 75.5 percent of the corresponding total reported before the pandemic.
There was a sizable increase in the number of visitors from Southeast Asian countries in July, with the total for the Philippines reaching almost 43,000, a jump of 38 percent year-on-year. The Malaysian market, meanwhile, grew by 31.4 percent (8,965), while Singapore’s increase amounted to 13.3 percent (5,669). Indonesia and Thailand, however, saw their visitor arrivals fall by 7.4 percent (13,570) and 14 percent (8,294) respectively.
Two other major visitor sources, South Korea and Japan, also experienced a year-on-year jump of around 66 percent (32,825) and 58 percent (8,778) respectively.
[See more: Foreign visitor arrivals grew by 122 percent in the first seven months of 2024]
In terms of the domestic visitor markets, all of them, with the exception of Hong Kong, witnessed robust growth last month. Visitor arrivals from mainland China rose by around 14 percent year-on-year, reaching a total of 2.18 million or 85 percent of the pre-pandemic total.
Similarly, there was a boost in the figures for Taiwan tourists whose arrival rate grew by almost 30 percent, with a total of 75,783 or nearly 93 percent of the July 2019 level.
Hong Kong’s numbers dropped by nearly 11 percent in comparison to July 2023 however, falling to a total of around 589,000.
Overall, there were 19.74 million visitors who travelled to Macao between January and July of this year, a surge of 37 percent year-on-year, but the figure is still less than the 23.81 million reported in the first seven months of 2019, marking a recovery of around 83 percent.
For this year, the government hopes to reach a total of 33 million visitor arrivals or 84 percent of the level from 2019.
