Tourism arrivals gain momentum following extension of NAT

Macau recorded over 21,000 tourist arrivals on Wednesday — the highest number of visitors in a single day following the tightening of border measures in early August.
Following the discovery of Delta cases on August 3, the government immediately imposed stricter regulations on border entrants, discouraging tourists in neighboring regions from visiting the city.
Since then, Macau saw a downturn in mainland visitors, as Zhuhai reduced the validity period of nucleic acid tests from 24 hours to 12 hours.
Recently, border restrictions have been eased, and the validity period for nucleic acid tests for border crossing is again seven days.
In a statement, the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) said that it has resumed its promotion of Macau to mainland visitors. It is publishing news updates via its official accounts on WeChat, Weibo, Xiaohongshu and Douyin, and conducting promotional campaigns which include special travel offers, such as hotel and air ticket coupons.
The city’s gross gaming revenue also recovered from August 16 to 22, registering a revenue increase of 55% week-on-week. The GGR dropped as much as 48% for the first week of August when compared with the previous week. The weekly total of 125 million patacas is “the lowest daily GGR since late September last year,” brokerage Sanford C Bernstein Ltd stated.