Daily visitors hit almost   180,000, reaches pre-pandemic levels

The first five days of the Spring Festival Golden Week, from Feb. 10 until Feb. 17, brought to Macau more visitors than in 2019, provisional figures released by the Public Security Police Force (PSP) and Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) have shown.

In the first five days (Feb. 10 to Feb. 14), the daily average of visitors entering Macau was 179,807, up 7.02% from pre-pandemic figure of 168,008.

This increase is even clearer when compared with the same period last year with the 2024 figure being 180% higher year-on-year.

The first three days of the new year, Feb. 10 to 12, contributed significantly to these results.

Visitor entries were consistently and significantly higher than in 2019, a trend that inverted from the fourth day onwards.

As the Times reported late last week, the MGTO had made a conservative forecast of about 120,000 visitors in the first eight days of the new year, a figure that should be easily surpassed. The peak of these numbers had already been reached by the third day, and after that the entry numbers started to decline.

In the same MGTO forecast, the tourism authority predicted 960,000 people would visit Macau over the week-long holiday, a number reached yesterday before noon with two days remaining.

As expected, the city was extremely busy around the major tourist landmarks such as the Ruins of Saint Paul’s and surrounding streets, in the Peninsula and the Rua do Cunha and surrounding areas in Taipa.

Still, most other areas of the Peninsula and Islands remained quiet as many locals prefer to spend holidays outside Macau.

Daily visitors close to an all-time record

A total of 217,541 visitors were recorded during the peak, the third day of the new year. This figure is the second largest for a single day and is close to the all-time record of 226,326 entries recorded on the third day of the new year in 2019.

The results of the first five days are reportedly making the MGTO reconsider its initial forecast with director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes telling Chinese media outlets Wednesday that is now expected the final figure for the eight days will be over 1 million visitors.

76% from the mainland, 18% from Hong Kong

As expected, visitors from mainland China continue to top the list of market sources by a large margin with 76.1% of all visitors entering Macau in the first five days of the new year coming from the mainland.

Hong Kong visitors were the second largest group, accounting for 18.4%.

Together, these two sources account for 94.5% of the total.

Those coming from other parts of the world, including visitors from Taiwan, were just 5.5%.

An analysis of the PSP’s daily figures, released before verification and cross-information, shows the number of foreigners in the first five days was a little over 40,000 while those arriving from Taiwan was around 10,000, which accounts for an average of respectively over 8,000 and about 2,000 per day.

Hotel occupancy over 90%

According to information released by the MGTO, hotel occupancy has recorded figures over the same period of over 90%.

Senna Fernandes said both the hotels very high occupancy rate as well as the number of visitors arrivals reflects favorably on the fact that the hotel industry has kept hotel room rates at a reasonable price.

F&B industry estimates sales up 20-30% compared  to Christmas

Addressing the predicted effects of the Spring Festival Golden Week, representatives of the food and beverage (F&B) industry have said to expect sales from this sector to be up some 20 to 30% when compared to the holidays, at the end of last year, which includes the Winter Solstice, the Macau handover day and the Christmas holidays.

The forecast was aired by the president of the Macau Catering Industry Association, Lei Iam Leong, during a talk show on TDM’s Chinese-language radio station.

Lei also said the flow of visitors to traditional tourism areas is booming and that shops in the area are mainly focused on snacks, which are especially appreciated by tourists because they can eat on the go.

Lei said some of the products were being sold at a promotional price which also attracted more consumers.