Worker’s Day ‘Golden Week’ fails to halt tourist drop in May

The good results in terms of the influx of tourists during the so-called Golden Week of the Worker’s Day (May 1) failed to maintain the increasing trend in the number of visitors, an official statistics release from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) shows.

According to the release, May 2023 registered a drop of 2.65% month-on-month when compared to April.

The official figures show that in April this year, some 2,274,050 people arrived in Macau while in May this figure dropped to 2,213,807 (-60,243).

This figure is particularly significant as in April visitor arrivals recorded a hike of 16.2% month-on-month.

An even more important drop was registered in overnight visitors in May (1,088,830), representing 87,626 fewer visitors (-7.45%) when compared to the previous month. The overall result was only offset by a better performance of same-day visitors that increased by 27,383 visitors or 2.49%.

Compared year-on-year with May 2019 (pre-pandemic), the number of visitors to Macau is currently 34.83%, below the 2019 level when it registered 3,396,835 visitors.

In the first five months of 2023, visitor arrivals reached 9,436,215 with a higher number of overnight visitors (4,904,039) than same-day visitors (4,532,176).

The first five months (Jan to May) figure also indicates that at the end of May this year the number of visitors arriving in Macau is still 45.1% less than those arriving in the first five months back in 2019.