Tourism | Golden Week visitors narrowly miss 1 million mark

Preliminary data from the Public Security Police Force, which is responsible for border control in Macau, show that some 985,000 visitor counts were recorded during the National Day Golden Week, spanning from October 1 to 7.

The Police calculated an approximate 11.5% growth compared to the same period last year. However, data available to the press covered a nine-day period between September 29 and October 7, instead of the seven-day period this year.

Last year, the nine days saw nearly 1.1 million visitor counts, while the seven-day equivelent registered 883,000 visitors.

As far as the frequency of border crossings is concerned, the police recorded around 2 million for both inbound and outbound crossings over the seven days.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge was not in operation last year during the October Golden Week, hence the lack of data for comparison.

Border crossings at both ferry terminals to Hong Kong dropped significantly, with the Outer Harbor drastically halving to 71,000 inbound and 74,000 outbound.

Traffic at the Taipa Ferry Terminal, on the other hand, has decreased from 83,000 to 57,000 for inbound and from 78,000 to 58,000 for outbound crossings.

Approximately 120,000 left and 110,000 entered Macau by the Bridge.

In contrast, more people are flying in and out of Macau directly, and so the airport recorded a significant rise in tourists during this period.  Last year, about 75,000 visitors flew in and 66,000 flew out of Macau, while this year, about 86,000 inbound and 78,000 outbound passengers were recorded at the airport.

Border crossings at the Border Gate proved to be the most popular, with a total of 1.4 million and 1.5 million coming in and out respectively.

Compared with the data last year, inbound counts at the Border Gate remained virtually unchanged with a slight increase of 60,000 crossings. In addition, outbound crossings rose by nearly 100,000. AL