Macau becomes 9th highest tourism earner worldwide

Macau was the ninth highest tourism earner worldwide last year, according to the latest report from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (WTO), bringing in a total of USD35.57 billion (almost MOP290 billion).

That marks a 17 percent increase from the $30.37 billion recorded in 2016, and an improvement of three places in the rankings.

By international tourism receipts, Macau ranked first among the Northeast Asian jurisdictions sampled in 2017. Tourism revenue in China and Hong Kong recorded $32.61 billion and $33.3 billion respectively, and runner-up Japan earned $34.05 billion. Although tourism arrivals in Northeast Asia rose 3 percent, tourism receipts across the region were down 5 percent on aggregate last year.

For the entire Asia-Pacific region, Macau placed third, accounting for 9.1 percent of all tourism revenue in the region, behind only Thailand ($57.47 billion) and Australia ($41.73 billion).

International tourism revenue increased 4.9 percent in real terms to reach $1.34 trillion in 2017, fueled according to the WTO by “strong outbound demand from both traditional and emerging markets”

In 2017, the U.S. retained its position as the top worldwide earner from tourism, attracting $210.74 billion in revenue. Spain and France ranked second and third worldwide with $67.96 billion and $60.68 billion respectively.

As for outbound tourists, some 1.32 billion international travelers were recorded in 2017, up by 6.8 percent year-on-year, of which slightly under half came from Europe and around one-quarter were from the Asia-Pacific region.

The 6.8 percent rise was the highest annual increase since the 2009 global economic crisis, according to the World Trade Organization, and well above the WTO’s forecast of 3.8 percent growth per year for the period between 2010 to 2020. “Growth was fueled by the global economic upswing, resulting in strong outbound demand from virtually all source markets,” the WTO noted in its report.

China continued to be the lead global outbound travel market in terms of expenditure at $257.7 billion. The next biggest spenders were the U.S. ($135 billion), Germany ($89.1 billion) and the United Kingdom ($71.4 billion).

According to the report, some 80 percent of international visitors traveled within their own region, however 20 percent went further abroad to other regions.

The WTO is a United Nations specialized agency responsible for promoting and assessing the development of tourism.