Macau saw a total of 789,407 visitor arrivals in July, a rise of 49.4% month-on-month (m-o-m). This followed a plunge in numbers last month, according to data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
The sharp drop in June arrivals was largely attributed to rigid anti-pandemic measures implemented in both Guangdong province and Macau in early June, designed to contain a fresh wave of Covid-19 cases.
In July, numbers of overnight visitors (412,735) and same-day visitors (376,672) bounced back by 1,634.5% and 650.2% year-on-year, respectively, according to data provided by the DSEC.
The number of mainland visitors rocketed by 989.4% year-on-year to 724,342, with 293,927 travelling as part of the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS).
In late January 2020, the central government stopped issuing IVS visas as one of its measures to contain Covid-19. However, individual visas already issued by mainland authorities remained valid, despite the issuance of new permits having halted.
The scheme only resumed on August 12 — hence the significant rise of mainland visitors, year-on-year.
Visitors from the nine Pearl River Delta cities in the Greater Bay Area totalled 426,991, 49.8% of whom came from Zhuhai. On top of this, there were 59,135 visitors from Hong Kong and 5,800 from Taiwan.
Compared to July 2020, the number of holidaymakers in July 2021 rose dramatically by 966.7% year-on-year.
In the first seven months of 2021, the number of visitor arrivals rose by 41.1% year-on-year to 4,717,236.
Previously, local tourism-related operators expressed optimism about the prospects for businesses during this summer holiday.
However, August tourism numbers in the first two weeks fell as much as to 78% compared to arrivals in July, due to the four Delta cases disovered in Macau, which resulted in the shortening of the validity of nucleic acid test (NAT) for tourists to 12 hours.
However, recent data is showing a rebound, as the SAR recorded a total of 16,700 and 16,900 tourists on Monday and Tuesday respectively — a 2.3% rise.
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