Almost 1 million visitors during Golden Week, 5% foreigners

The Golden Week of the National Day holidays, which followed the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, has accounted for a higher number of visitors to Macau than initially forecasted. 

The eight-day holiday period saw over 900,000 (931,429) visitors, a 16.4% increase over the expectations stated by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) officials, with a daily average of 116,429.

When compared with 2019 pre-pandemic figures, the total figures of this year’s Golden Week still fall short of the 974,337 visitor arrivals in the first seven days. If we compare this year’s results (for the first seven days) with those from 2019, the number of entries this year was still 11.8% lower.

Foreign visitors growing steadily

As the Times had previously reported, the number of foreign visitors has also grown significantly, representing 5% of all visitors entering Macau in this period. Although the figure is still small when contrasted with the government’s ambitions to increase foreign visitation, it represents a steady increase when compared with previous holiday seasons this year (2.1% during Ching Ming and Easter holidays and 4.2% in the first eight months of this year).

This time, some 46,531 foreign visitors entered Macau from Sept. 29 until Oct. 6, accounting for a daily average of 5,816.

Over 4.5 million border crossings

According to the statistics from the Public Security Police Force, over the eight days, there was a total of 4,608,216 movements across the borders of Macau. Of these, over one-third (1,551,707 or 33.67%) were by local residents.

As usual, the residents from the mainland topped the list, accounting for over half (56.2%) of the border crossings (2,589,716).

Residents from the neighboring region of Hong Kong were responsible for some 349,902 border movements (7.59%).

Foreigners accounted for just 2.1% (94,337) of all border movements. Of note, there were more exits from Macau by foreigners during the 8-day holiday period (47,806) than entries (46,531).

Airport only accounts for 6.1% of visitor arrivals

During the holidays, some 56,393 visitors entered Macau through the Macau International Airport (MIA) checkpoint, accounting for just 6.1% of the total visitors recorded in the same period.

The figure shows that most of the tourists are arriving from the neighboring cities of Macau. The MIA still does not offer real competition in the market for the transport of tourists from further locations by air.

Interviewed by the Times, a couple of tourists from Shanghai said that they took the opportunity over the holidays to visit Macau and Hong Kong, having traveled from Shanghai to Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport.

They said that the mainland airports still offer an incomparable advantage in terms of price when compared to Macau or even Hong Kong airports, noting that the transfers from Shenzhen to Hong Kong and Zhuhai to Macau have become increasingly convenient, giving a competitive advantage to those across the mainland border.