Visitor arrivals falling short of expectations: Insiders

The month-to-date visitor arrivals in Macau fell short of the high expectations of the tourism industry, despite the eagerly awaited return of the Macau Grand Prix.

Tourism industry insiders have stated that daily average visitors so far this month amounted to roughly 16,000, as cited in a report by Macao Daily News.

This figure is below the corresponding one for the same period of the previous year, insiders claim.

Meanwhile, the hotel occupancy rate was estimated to be about 60% during the Grand Prix week, which was watched by some 76,000 spectators.

The tourism and hotel sector has been eyeing some rebound from tourist arrivals since the announcement that e-visas from the mainland would resume.

The issuance of group package tours to Macau and e-visas under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) is shaping up to be a massive boost for the SAR’s gaming and tourism operators, which have been negatively affected since the pandemic began in early 2020.

In October, meanwhile, visitor arrivals grew by 4.0% month-on-month to 580,333.

As regards source of visitors, number of visitors from mainland China expanded by 72.4% year-on-year to 518,843, with 202,166 visitors travelling under the IVS.

In the first ten months of 2022, number of visitor arrivals dropped by 18.7% year-on-year to 4,944, 438. LV