The city’s tourism industry is well and truly back in business, with more than a million visitors pouring into Macao last month according to the latest figures – a rise of 259 per cent month-on-month.
The Statistics and Census Service put the huge increase – to 1.39 million – down to the government’s easing of Covid-19 entry curbs and the Chinese New Year holiday.
Year-on-year, last month’s visitor arrivals rose 101.3 per cent.
Overnight visitors (816,199) and same-day visitors (581,549) soared 234.5 per cent and 29.1 per cent year-on-year respectively.
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Overnight visitors’ average length of stay dipped by 0.8 days to 2.6 days.
Mainland Chinese visitor arrivals increased 54.5 per cent year-on-year to 991,641, accounting for 70.9 per cent of the total number of visitor arrivals in January. Visitors from Hong Kong accounted for 25.5 per cent of all visitor arrivals, numbering 356,958 – a leap of 704.3 per cent year on year.
Visitors from the nine Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities grew 47.6 per cent year-on-year to 608,338, or 43.5 per cent of the total number of visitor arrivals.
Visitor arrivals by sea and by air rose 1,052.8 per cent and 87.9 per cent year-on-year to 149,649 and 95,163 respectively, thanks to the resumption of ferry services between Hong Kong and Macao, and a rebound in passenger traffic at the local airport, the Macau Post Daily reported.
