CNY holiday ends with over 1.7 million visitors

The Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday period closed yesterday with a final tally of 1,701,600 visitor arrivals and 6,695,682 border crossings, according to the Public Security Police Force (PSP).

Contributing to these numbers was Monday’s final result, which recorded 157,278 visitor arrivals.

According to the final release, the market share ratios remained at 76% for mainland visitors, 16% for Hong Kong visitors, and 6% for international visitors. The remaining 2% were visitors from Taiwan.

Also noted was that local residents entering and reentering Macau accounted for over 2.2 million border movements, with a total of 1,127,857 arrivals recorded between February 14 and February 23. In the same period, 1,133,228 departures were recorded by local residents. In both cases, about half of these border movements occurred at the Border Gate, which also remained the busiest border checkpoint in Macau during this period.

In total, the Border Gate alone accounted for almost 3 million border crossings (2,979,836), representing 44.5% of the total.

The second busiest border checkpoint was the Macau Port Area at Hengqin Port, which recorded 1,039,221 passengers during this period, slightly more than the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau (HKZM) Bridge, which recorded 1,030,006.

Also close behind the second- and third-busiest ports was Qingmao, which recorded over 1 million border crossings (1,016,973). However, it would still need to surpass the movement at the Border Gate, which continues to be the most preferred border crossing point for both visitors and locals, according to statistics.

The top five busiest entry and exit ports in Macau were rounded out by the airport, although there was a wide gap compared to the others. In total, 255,742 passengers arrived and departed Macau via the international airport.

Meanwhile, data from the Macao Government Tourism Office shows that average hotel occupancy reached 95.6% during the Spring Festival Golden Week, according to industry operators. Occupancy peaked at 99.2% on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year (February 20).