The Public Security Police (PSP) announced in a statement Monday that they recorded 425,258 visitor arrivals during the three-day holiday period of the Ching Ming Festival from Friday to Sunday, a 23.6 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
The traditional Chinese festival (also spelt Cheng Ming or Qingming) is also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day or Ancestors’ Day.
The police recorded some 1.8 million entries and exits at the city’s eight border checkpoints during the three-day period – 910,430 entries and 889,674 exits, the statement said.
The entry and exit figures announced by the Public Security Police, who run the city’s immigration service, comprise local residents, visitors, non-resident workers and non-local students enrolled in Macau.
The police said on Sunday that the number of entries and exits at the Barrier Gate checkpoint hit a record high of 467,000 on Saturday, replacing the previous record on March 16. According to local media reports, the police recorded 462,500 entries and exits at the city’s busiest checkpoint on March 16.
During the three-day Ching Ming period, the police recorded 1,300,267 entries and exits at the Barrier Gate checkpoint, 142,339 at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) checkpoint, 105,510 at the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal, 93,663 at the Lotus Flower Bridge checkpoint, 73,402 at the airport, 66,419 at the Taipa Ferry Terminal, 18,502 at the Zhuhai Macau Cross-border Industrial Zone checkpoint in Ilha Verde, and two at the Inner Harbour Ferry Terminal, whose normal operations have been suspended for several years.
The Gongbei border checkpoint – the mainland’s counterpart of Macau’s Barrier Gate checkpoint – is the nation’s busiest land border checkpoint.(Macaunews)
