July visitor arrivals rise 2.4% as overnight stays fall

[Photo: Renato Marques]

Macau recorded 3.54 million visitor arrivals in July, up 2.4% year over year, but overnight visitors continued to decline as same-day travel drove overall growth, official data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed.

Despite this increase, the number of overnight visitors contracted by 2.9% to 1,434,474, resulting in a shorter average length of stay by 0.1 day.

Consequently, the increase in arrivals is attributed to the surge in same-day visitors, which rose by 6.4% year over year to 2,107,744.

Traditionally one of the busier months for visitation due to the summer holidays, July’s figure represented a 26.5% increase compared with June, when the total number was just above 2.8 million. The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has said a similar increase is expected to continue this month (August).

Analysis by the Times for the first seven months of the year (Jan. to Jul.) shows that total visitors this year are around 8% higher than in 2025, with the accumulated figure for the period at 24,486,664, or a monthly average of roughly 3.5 million.

July also recorded the third-highest number of arrivals of the year, after February (4,172,940) and January (3,647,328).

This increase was also sustained by same-day visitors (14,997,588), which grew by 13.9%, while overnight visitors (9,489,076) edged down by 0.3%.

Meanwhile, due to the higher influx of same-day visitors, the average length of stay shortened by 0.1 day to 1.1 days, while that of overnight visitors (2.4 days) remained unchanged.

More from India, less from Korea

As for visitor sources, visitors from the mainland increased by 5.4% year over year to 2,701,203, with those traveling under the Individual Visit Scheme (1,493,612) rising by 9.6%.

In Greater China markets, visitors from Taiwan (104,833) rose 13.9%, while those from Hong Kong (561,713) fell 10.2%.

Also declining were the numbers of international visitors (174,469), down by 1.9%.

Leading the decline were visitors from the Philippines (32,865) and Thailand (12,081), which fell by 13.3% and 2.2%, respectively.

In contrast, visitors from India (10,261) surged by 66.4% year over year.

Another key market also declined, as visitors from South Korea (27,531) fell by 14.7%, while among the long-haul markets, visitors from the USA (15,859) continued to lead with a slight increase of 0.4%.

Analysis of the first seven months of the year shows that international visitors totaled 1,596,917, an increase of 5.1% year over year.