China to add new Macau visas for Zhuhai and Hengqin residents

Residents in Zhuhai will be able to apply for a one-trip-per-week visa.

Macau.- China’s State Council has approved policies to ease visa requirements for residents of Zhuhai and Hengqin. From January 1, 2025, residents of Zhuhai will be eligible to apply for a one-trip-per-week visa for up to seven days per visit. It was not disclosed if a reapplication is needed for each trip.

Hengqin residents holding a household registration and residence permit will be able to apply for a multiple-entry visa. There will be no limit on the number of trips, but each visit will be limited to seven days.

Since May 6, mainland residents have been able to participate in Macau-Hengqin group tours, allowing multiple entries between the two regions. As of this week, nearly 6,000 people have joined these group tours, according to Hengqin authorities.

Between January and October, nearly 2.78 million Zhuhai residents visited Macau, with 77.4 per cent classified as same-day visitors. This represents 26 per cent of all arrivals from Guangdong province during the period.

See also: GGR to reach US$30.2bn in 2025, analysts say

Visitor arrivals up 13.7% in October

The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) has reported that 3,135,358 people visited Macau in October. The figure was up 24 per cent in year-on-year terms and up 13.7 per cent when compared to the previous month. That represents a recovery to 97.7 per cent of 2019 levels, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Same-day visitors (1,789,072) rose by 23.2 per cent year-on-year and overnight visitors (1,346,286) by 3.1 per cent. The average length of stay shortened by 0.1 days to 1.1 days, with that of overnight visitors remaining unchanged at 2.3 days.

Mainland Chinese tourists accounted for the majority of arrivals at 2,263,443. That’s a rise of 16.1 per cent year-on-year and 96.6 per cent of 2019 levels. Those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (1,078,248) grew by 6.8 per cent in year-on-year terms. Visitors from the nine Pearl River Delta cities in the Greater Bay Area were up by 21.8 per cent year-on-year to 1,158,666. Visitors from the ten cities newly added to the Scheme grew by 4.2 per cent year-on-year to 40,105, with the majority coming from Xi’an, Harbin and Taiyuan.

Visitors from Taiwan reached 68,701, up 28 per cent year-on-year to 81 per cent of 2019 levels, while the number of tourists from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR; 590,930) decreased by 0.2 per cent. International visitor arrivals reached 212,284, 98.8 per cent of 2019 levels. In year-on-year terms, the figure was up 31.2 per cent.

In terms of Southeast Asian markets, the number of visitors from the Philippines (38,924), Malaysia (15,926), Indonesia (13,625), and Singapore (9,558) increased by 30.3 per cent, 47.1 per cent, 0.3 per cent, and 1.9 per cent year-on-year, respectively, while visitors from Thailand (12,036) saw a decline of 14.5 per cent.

In South Asian markets, visitor numbers from India (8,148) rose by 29 per cent year-on-year. For the Northeast Asian markets, there was growth in visitors from the Republic of Korea (47,069) and Japan (9,594), which increased by 83.5 per cent and 23.5 per cent year-on-year, respectively. Concerning long-haul markets, the number of visitors from the USA (13,022) experienced a year-on-year increase of 20.8 per cent.

See also: Macau hotel occupancy rate reaches 93.5% in October

Residents in Zhuhai will be able to apply for a one-trip-per-week visa. Macau.- China’s State Council has approved policies to ease visa requirements for residents of Zhuhai and Hengqin. From…