Over 490,000 tourist arrivals during hottest Mid-Autumn Festival on record

During the recent Mid-Autumn Festival, Macau saw a surge in travel across its borders, highlighting the holiday’s festive spirit.

From Sept. 14 to 18, the festival, celebrated widely in East Asia, saw about 1 million tourists, including 492,000 inbound travelers.

A staggering 3.019 million passengers entered and exited through various checkpoints, with the influx of tourists marking a notable recovery in travel trends, according to data from the Public Security Police.

Key entry points such as the Border Gate welcomed more than 195,700 incoming passengers, while the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Port received over 102,000 tourist arrivals.

Also, Macau recorded its hottest Mid-Autumn Festival since 1952, when records began, with temperatures soaring to 34.6 degrees Celsius on Sept. 17, according to the Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG).

This unprecedented heat shattered the previous record of 33.7 degrees Celsius set on Sept. 14, 2008.

Last year, the city experienced its third hottest Mid-Autumn Festival, with temperatures reaching 33.4 degrees Celsius on Sept. 29, highlighting a concerning trend in rising temperatures during this culturally significant holiday.

SMG has attributed the surge in extreme weather events, including this record heat, to climate change and global warming. 

The Mid-Autumn Festival is traditionally a time of family reunions and cultural celebrations.

In China, some 629.56 million passenger trips were handled by its transportation sectors during the three-day holiday for the festival, up 31.1% year on year, data from the Ministry of Transport showed Wednesday.

Of the total, China recorded 42.57 million passenger trips by railway, 1.98 million by water, and 5.07 million by air.

Road traffic took the lion’s share, with 579.94 million passenger trips.

The latest data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reveals that domestic tourist destinations welcomed approximately 107 million visitors during the holiday, marking a 6.3% increase compared to 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Travelers spent over 51 billion yuan, an 8% rise from 2019, when the holiday was celebrated in mid-September. In contrast, last year, the holiday coincided with the National Holiday.