Macau, China, 26 Oct – In the first nine months of this year, the number of visitor arrivals rose 17.1 percent year-on-year to 18.58 million, according to figures released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) Monday.
Macau’s total number of visitor arrivals stood at 1.84 million in September, a 22 percent drop from the previous month.
Last month’s figure was the lowest of any month since September last year.September is traditionally a slow month for Macau’s tourism industry.
Year-on-year, the number of visitor arrivals last month was up 8.9 percent.
Same-day visitors accounted for 52.8 percent of all visitor arrivals last month.
South Korean visitors rose 148 percent year-on-year to 29,475 last month. The number of visitors from India grew 29.8 percent to 12,210.
Visitors from Asia accounted for 97 percent of the total last month.
Mainlanders accounted for 48.6 percent of all visitor arrivals in September, when Hongkongers made up 32.5 percent of the total.
Meanwhile, the DSEC also announced that Macau had 1,615 restaurants – including coffee and noodle shops and 45 cooked-food stalls – at the end of last year, 47 more than in 2008.
The restaurant sector employed 19,738 people last year, up four percent year-on-year. The sector’s turnover stood at 4.79 billion patacas last year, an increase of 6.5 percent from 2008.
(MacauNews)
