Macau has recorded the arrival of almost 12 million visitors during the first half of this year (1H), the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has disclosed based on provisional statistics.
According to those records, some 11.65 million have entered Macau between January and June, a number that represents a daily average of over 64,000 visitors.
Although the numbers are still far from those recorded pre-pandemic (2019), the MGTO noted that the current numbers account for a rebound to 59.6% of 2019 numbers.
Struggling more to recover is the number of international visitor arrivals, which only reached approximately 475,000 in the first half of the year, accounting for a rebound of 31.2% of 2019 levels.
Citing the same provisional figures, the MGTO also remarked that the hotel occupancy rate averaged 80.1%. This is the segment of the tourism sector that has displayed a faster rebound, amounting to just a 10.7% difference from the 2019 rate (90.8%).
The MGTO attributed the good results to their “dedicated unreserved efforts in destination marketing” with a reliance on both online and offline promotional measures that have been rolled out since borders reopened.
Also contributing to the positive results were the public-private partnerships in events held every month, according to the MGTO.
For the upcoming months, the MGTO says that it will continue its efforts on increasing international visitation after the promotions held in Lisbon, Portugal and Bangkok, Thailand, in April and June and most recently, last weekend, in Seoul, Korea.
Additionally, the MGTO is participating in major regional and international travel fairs and trade networking events to promote Macau through different channels.
The MGTO is hopeful that Macau’s tourism industry will continue to recover to levels closer to those seen in 2019 through to the end of this year. A series of large-scale events are planned for the second half of the year, including the 31st Macao International Fireworks Display Contest (in September), the 70th Macau Grand Prix (in November) and the Light up Macao event (in December), among others.
Airport records movement of close to 2 million
The Macau International Airport (MIA) has registered movement of almost 2 million passengers in the first six months of this year, the MIA company noted in a statistics release.
According to the same release, 1,953,065 passengers passed through the local airport between January and June, a figure that is still some 59% shorter than the 4,721,549 registered in the same period of 2019.
Still, the number of passengers handled by the airport this year has shown a significant increase since January – when some 209,000 people were carried – to June which recorded some 431,000.
When it hit its record in 2019, the MIA carried some 9.6 million passengers in a year, an average of 800,000 per month.
The best single month on record occurred in August 2019, when 931,486 passengers were handled by the airport.
Promotion of local gastronomy by influencers in Douyin in August
A new series of promotions by digital influencers from the mainland is set to roll out in August, aiming to attract more visitors to Macau during the summer holidays, the Economic and Technological Development Bureau (DSEDT) has said in a press statement.
The DSEDT said that the initiative is the second series of such promotions, with the first one having been launched in June. The promotional activities use mainland influencers on the platform Douyin (the mainland equivalent to TikTok) to promote local restaurants and gastronomy in general.
Titled “Promotion plan by digital influencers in Douyin,” the initiative aims to bring these influencers to Macau to explore different restaurants. The influencers will share their experiences online as recommendations (“planting seeds”).
Several local stores considered to have ‘unique characteristics’ have been listed as participating in this promotional series.
The first group of influencers that visited the stores already released their video promotions last month. The second group will do the same in August, the DSEDT said.
The Bureau did not disclose any further details about the system nor the costs involved in the promotional activities, or whether and how it will be possible to verify that the promotions achieve the desired effect.
The use of digital influencers to promote places and activities in Macau has been used for some time by the Macao Government Tourism Office, who have made use of mainland Douyin users as well as other influencers from Hong Kong to reach a broader audience through different social media platforms.
