Tourism | Visitors surge 40% over Easter fueling over-tourism concerns

Tourist arrivals surged almost 40% during the Easter holiday period, according to data provided yesterday by immigration authorities, prompting fresh concerns about Macau’s capacity to accommodate the growing number of visitors.

The four-day holiday period from April 19 to 22 registered just under 556,200 visitor arrivals in the city, up 39.3% from the equivalent four-day period in 2018, from March 30 to April 2.

Meanwhile, there were 2.46 million border crossings during Easter, with the Border Gate proving the most popular entry point for tourists, accounting for about 68% of the traffic. The second most popular point of entry was the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, with around 11% of visitors to Macau, while arrivals by sea sunk by 37.9% to 571,300 visitors.

Over-tourism has been a topic of intense interest for government officials, lawmakers and the wider public in past months, supported by the recent findings of a study from the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) that concluded Macau’s optimal “tourism carrying capacity” stood at 40 million annual arrivals, or 110,000 tourists per day.

The issue was raised again by several lawmakers during yesterday’s Legislative Assembly plenary session, including Leong Sun Iok and Song Pek Kei.

Macau received 35.8 million visitor arrivals over the course of 2018, a 10 percent rise from 32.6 million in 2017.

Official data from the Statistics and Census Bureau shows that the number of tourists visiting Macau this year is tracking significantly higher than in 2018.

Macau recorded 10.36 million tourist arrivals during the first quarter of 2019, about 21.2% more than in the same quarter a year earlier, with the bulk of the increase carried by same- day visitors.

While overnight visitors increased by around 9.3% year- on-year in the first quarter to 4.73 million, same-day visitors soared 33.4% to 5.62 million. Accordingly, the average length of stay of visitors shortened by about 0.1 days year-on-year to 1.1 days.

The quarter was completed by a 24% year-on-year rise in visitors during March, following 24.9% and 15.5% growth in January and February respectively.

The growth seen in the first quarter puts Macau on track to record nearly 43 million arrivals by year-end, higher than the 40 million recommended in the IFT study.

The IFT was keen to stress earlier this month that the 40-million mark was not the maximum number of visitors that Macau’s infrastructure could support, as commonly inferred. Rather, it is the estimated maximum the city can accommodate without negatively impacting the cultural and natural environment, such as the city’s architecture, heritage and community, as well as visitor experiences.

KOREA RISES TO THIRD- LARGEST MARKET

Despite the surge in visitor arrivals, the source markets of Macau’s visitors appear to have held mostly stable. Mainland China and Hong Kong remain the two largest source markets, but South Korea has overtaken Taiwan as the third-largest destination.

In the first quarter, visitors from mainland China (7.44 million) and Hong Kong (1.79 million) recorded respective growth of 23.5% and 21.3% year-on-year. Visitors from South Korea (262,000) and Taiwan (261,800) grew by 9.2% and 3.3% respectively. Visitors from the United States (50,200), Australia (24,000), Canada (20,800) and the United Kingdom (13,800) showed marginal year-on-year growth.

Meanwhile, partly owing to the impact of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the Statistics and Census Service said that in visitors to Macau from the cities of the Greater Bay Area grew by 16.6% year-on-year to 1.36 million in March alone, with 44 percent of them coming from Hong Kong. Visitors from neighboring Zhuhai and Guangzhou totaled 227,000 (16.6%) and 155,000 (11.4%) respectively, representing year-on-year increases of 47.5% and 11%.