The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) forecasts that over the Chinese New Year (CNY) holidays, Macau should receive an average of 185,000 visitors per day, MGTO director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes told the media on the sidelines of the press conference that unveiled the series of CNY activities to take place in Macau.
She explained that during the 8 days between January 28 and February 4, there were an average of 185,000 visitors per day, roughly representing around 1.5 million visitors for the whole period.
“We are expecting some 185,000 people per day over this period of eight days, so this is a significantly high increase compared to last year,” she said in an interview with public broadcaster TDM.
A year ago, the same official forecasted about 120,000 visitors per day for the CNY festivities known as the Spring Festival Golden Week. This figure was surpassed by far, with the daily average reaching 169,725 visitors.
This year’s forecast is about 9% higher than the average of 2024.
Senna Fernandes justified the forecast with the new policies recently enforced by the Central government, which gives MGTO hope to reach a new and extended goal.
She also noted that, according to the forecast, some 8,000 of the 185,000 daily visitors will be international visitors.
Industry hopes occupancy rate to exceed 90%
In a different interview with the TDM, Cheung Kin Chung, a lawmaker and president of the Macau Hoteliers & Innkeepers Association, said that most of the city’s hotels should be fully occupied during CNY.
He noted that hotel booking rates for this period currently exceed 60%, which is expected to increase over this week.
Cheung said that the occupancy rate will likely be between 90% and 95%, and room prices are estimated to increase by about 1% to 1.5%, which he considered reasonable.
In the same report, Andy Wu, president of the Travel Industry Council of Macau, added that it is expected that the number of visitors will increase this year when compared to 2024, remarking that there are already many hotel reservations, particularly for the third day of the new year (January 31).
He said the industry is in close contact with the tourism authorities to ensure that room prices do not “skyrocket” during this period.
He also added that the industry expects the occupancy rate to exceed 90% during the holidays.
2025 could bring some 39 million to Macau
When questioned by the media about the topic, the MGTO director said that for the whole year of 2025, the Office forecasts that the number of entries to Macau can reach as many as 39 million.
“If we are a bit optimistic and consider the figures seen in 2024, we can expect that [this year] we can receive between 38 to 39 million visitors. This will be a figure very close to the one seen back in 2019,” Senna Fernandes said, adding that this is a more “optimistic forecast” than in previous years and that it is also grounded in the growth seen in international visitation last year.
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