Hato dents tourism figures

Official data released by the Statistic and Census Service (DSEC) shows the detrimental effect Typhoon Hato’s arrival on August 23 had on Macau’s tourism figures.

According to DSEC, visitor arrivals in August edged down by 0.6 percent year-on-year to 2,866,400, but decreased by 1.8 percent month-to-month. Due to transportation infrastructure affected by the extreme weather phenomenon, same-day visitors (1,318,600) decreased by 6.2 percent year-on-year, while overnight visitors (1,547,800) increased by 4.8 percent.

Moreover, visitors’ average length of stay was about 0.1 days higher in the previous month than in August, 2016, with that of overnight visitors (2.2 days) rising 0.1 days and that of same-day visitors remaining unchanged at 0.2 days.

As the statistical distortion was produced solely in the final week of August while the rest of the month was unaffected, it can be concluded that the effect of the typhoon was considerable.

Analyzed by place of origin, visitors from Hong Kong (529,600) were affected most severely, with around 10.5 percent fewer visitors traveling to the MSAR last month. Visitors from Taiwan (92,500) dipped by 1.9 percent year-on-year. Those from the U.S. (11,900), Canada (4,800), Australia (4,500) and the U.K. (4,300) also registered marginal decreases.

Conversely, visitors from mainland China increased by 1.9 percent year-on-year to 2,016,800 in August, with those from Guangdong Province and Hunan Province accounting for around 841,600 and 93,700 visitors, respectively. Meanwhile, the number of South Korean tourists in August (75,500) soared by 30.8 percent last month.

Analyzed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by land (1,654,000) decreased by 1.1 percent year-on-year, with those arriving via the Border Gate (1,413,000) decreasing by 2.3 percent. Visitor arrivals by sea (966,000) dropped by 2.8 percent year-on-year, while those by air (246,600) grew 13.5 percent.

In the first eight months of 2017, visitor arrivals totaled almost 21.35 million, up by 4.4 percent year-on-year. Overnight visitors increased 11.5 percent year-on-year to 11.25 million.