Tourism in Macau: visitor arrivals up 13.7% in October

Some 3.1 million people visited Macau in October.

Macau.- 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.

Macau predictions for 2025: The government expects over 36m visitors

During a recent plenary session of the Legislative Assembly, Macau’s secretary for economy and finance, Lei Wai Nong, said that Macau could attract 36 million tourists in 2025. That’s a 9 per cent growth compared to 2024 estimations.

Nong also replied to questions about how the government had arrived at a MOP240bn (US$29.9bn) forecast for casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in its 2025 budget proposal. In his response, he echoed Tuesday’s comments by the city’s chief executive (CE), Ho Iat Seng, and said the target was based on “cautious consideration”, and an assumption that Macau can this year achieve GGR of between MOP226bn and MOP228bn.

November’s GGR is expected to reach MOP18bn (US$2.25bn), up 12 per cent in year-on-year terms due to a relatively low baseline last year. GGR for October was MOP20.79bn (US$2.60bn), an increase of 6.6 per cent year-on-year and 20.5 per cent compared to the previous month. It was the city’s best monthly performance since January 2020 (MOP22.13bn).

Some 3.1 million people visited Macau in October. Macau.- 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…