Number of tourists drops by 7.6 percent

Tourists pose for a selfie photograph in Macau

The number of visitor arrivals to Macau totaled 2,589,451 in November. According to information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), this figure represents a drop of 7.6 percent year-on-year and 1.8 percent month-to-month.
Meanwhile, same-day visitors totaled 1,344,381 (51.9 percent of the total). In this case, the slump was even bigger, with numbers decreasing by 14 percent year-on-year. Overnight visitors rose marginally by 0.4 percent to 1,245,070.
The DSEC data indicates that the average length of stay slightly increased by 0.2 days year-on-year to 1.1 days. The average duration of stay of same-day visitors remained unchanged, while that of overnight visitors (2.1 days) rose by 0.2 days.
Tourists coming from mainland China continue to decline (12.6 percent year-on-year), with those traveling under the Individual Visit Scheme dropping even further by 17.6 percent.
In terms of the provenance of these visitors, mainland China, especially Guangdong Province, tops the boards with a total of 772,547 visitors. Hong Kong comes second with 512,537 and Taiwan is third with 84,697. There were also significant increases in visitors from Korea, Japan and Taiwan, with numbers from these countries rising 10.8 percent, 8.8 percent and 21.6 percent respectively year-on-year.
Regarding long-haul visitors, the United States continues to top the list with 18,619, followed by Australia (8,519) and Canada (7,683). These three countries registered year-on-year increases, while visitors from the United Kingdom (6,210) declined.
Also in decline is the number of visitors arriving via the Border Gate (1,308,785), which is down 10.1 percent year-on-year, while those coming via the Checkpoint of Cotai (162,420) increased marginally by 0.8 percent. Visitor arrivals by sea also decreased by 6.7 percent year-on-year to 939,736, with those arriving via the Outer Harbor totaling 572,957, while 343,801 arrived via the Provisional Ferry Terminal in Taipa.
Tourist arrivals by air increased slightly by 0.7 percent year-on-year to 176,424.
In the first 11 months of 2015, visitor arrivals totaled 28,080,530, down by 3.1 percent year-on-year, a majority of which were same-day visitors (15,103,046). Visitors from mainland China (18,753,911), the Republic of Korea (499,297) and Japan (255,203) decreased by 4.4 percent, 1.6 percent and 7.2 percent respectively, while those from Hong Kong (5,943,224), the Philippines (246,534), and Taiwan (902,930) rose by 1.1 percent, 4.4 percent and 3.1 percent.  RM

Chinese tourists pose for a photo in Japan

120 million Chinese traveled in 2015

The National Tourism Administration of China (CNTA) announced yesterday that 120 million Chinese traveled outside mainland China in 2015, an increase of 19.5 percent year-on-year.
The “increasing purchasing power” of Chinese citizens and “ease in obtaining a visa for many countries” explain the rapid rise in this figure, which is 13 times the amount of people traveling in 1998.
In the same period, there were 4 billion tourist trips within China, which generated total revenue of about RMB4 billion.
For the coming years, the CNTA identified the promotion of tourism in the country’s rural areas as a major focus.
China surpassed the United States in 2011 as the world’s largest source of tourists, and, in 2014, about 109 million Chinese traveled outside the country.
The majority of the visits are to Hong Kong and Macau, but South-East Asia, the United States, Europe and Australia are increasingly attracting the new Chinese middle class.