May falls slightly short from April in tourist arrivals

The city has accommodated about 601,000 tourists in May, which was 1% short from the count in April, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) of the Macau government disclosed yesterday.

On year-over-year comparison, the drop amounted to about 30%, the DSEC added.

The average time a tourist remains in Macau was 0.7 days shorter than the same month a year ago. They stayed shorter than a day – 0.9 days to be exact – on average in May.

Although the average stay duration implies hotel or inn accommodation may not have been necessary, some tourists chose to stay at a hotel in Macau in May. However, they stayed on average only 2.1 days, which was 0.8 days shorter than the data from a year ago.

Those who did not stay overnight in Macau spent on average 0.1 days in Macau.

Due to an entry ban that has been in place since approximately the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the city has not seen tourists from non-Greater Chinese countries.

On the other hand, mainland Chinese residents once again topped the list of most popular source markets of tourists. About 176,000 mainland residents visited Macau in May; among these, 404,000 were residents of the Greater Bay Area.

Despite this, 32.3% less mainland tourists visited Macau in May 2022 compared with May 2021.

In May, 574,000 visitors entered Macau by land, which equated to a 25% drop year-over-year. Among them, 78.6% used the Border Gate Checkpoint and 13.3% used the Hengqin Border Checkpoint. A little more than 22,000 came by ferry and nearly 4,000 by air.

In the first five months of this year, the city has received slightly over 3 million visitors, nearly a 10% drop year-over-year. More people chose to stay overnight elsewhere, which amounted to a 27.3% rise year-over-year.