Macau recorded a daily average of 80,61 visitors – corresponding to 13.5 percent of the local population – in January, The Macau Post Daily reports, citing offical figures released by the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) Monday.
Macau had a population of 598,200 – including residents and imported labour – at the end of the third quarter of last year, according to DSEC figures.
The number of visitor arrivals rose eight percent year-on-year to 2.5 million in January, more than four times the city’s population. The Chinese New Year holiday period began in the last week of January this year. Chinese New Year fell on February last year. Due to the huge number of Chinese New Year visitors this year, the authorities were forced to implement pedestrian traffic control measures in the city centre.
Same-day visitors accounted for 54 percent of the total.
The number of mainland visitors rose 15 percent year-on-year to 1.69 million last year. Some 48.3 percent of all mainland visitors came from Guangdong. Mainlanders travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme accounted for 49 percent of the total number of visitors from the mainland.
A total of 494,149 Hong Kong ID card holders visited Macau last month, a year-on-year drop of three percent.
Last month also saw 14,483 visitors from the US, 11,311 from Australia, 5,750 from Canada and 4,115 from Russia.
Visitors stayed for an average of just one day last month. (macaunews)
