February daily visitor arrival reaches non-festival new high

The average tourist arrival count in February has edged towards the 60,000 level, reaching 57,000, while the average count for early March was over 50,000, director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) disclosed yesterday in an event.

Against this backdrop, the MGTO has adjusted the daily target of its work to maintaining an average of 50,000 visitors per day.

Moreover, the MGTO director disclosed that as of January this year, tourists from the non-Greater China market accounted for 2.2% of the total number of tourists. Counting these tourists only, the five major source markets are the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan and the US.

She believes that the proportion of tourists from the non-Greater China market will increase to 10% “rather quickly”, given the gradual resumption of international flights and interactions between Macau and Hong Kong.

Most international travelers to Macau opt for flying to Hong Kong before transferring to Macau by ferry or shuttle bus, unless there are direct flights between their cities of origin and Macau.

The MGTO director also drew the audience’s attention to the Travel Stimulation Program, which is led by the Office and aim at providing “incentive measures” to entities in the hopes of enticing them to organize company incentive tours, wedding, student excursions or sporting events in Macau. Events that have at least 25 non-Macau participants who will stay for at least two nights are eligible.

In reference to this year’s application number, the tourism official said that as of the end of February, 5,346 people from five events have benefitted from the scheme.

At the same occasion, Jacinto Luiz, executive director of the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), disclosed that last year, MICE tourists spent MOP5,000 per person, which was 1.5 times that of general tourists.