Figures released by the Public Security Police Force (PSP), which handles immigration matters in Macau, showed that on average there were 40,000 daily visitors entering and exiting last week.
Last week’s daily figures fluctuated within a range of 3,000 visitors, from 39,700 to 42,700 during the first six days. There were only 35,100 visitors recorded on Sunday, the last day of the week.
Visitor arrivals are seeing a gradual improvement, although the number of daily entries is still far below pre-Covid levels.
In October, the city welcomed just over 77,000 visitors in the first four days of the month, 87.4% fewer than in the equivalent period a year earlier. The data showed that Friday, October 2 was the busiest day, recording some 22,116 tourist arrivals.
Normally, there is huge influx of visitors from mainland China in first week of October. October 1 is China’s National Day, and residents of the mainland enjoy a week-long holiday.
It is not uncommon for them to travel to all corners of the world. However, this year, with strict travel restrictions, they mainly roamed around the country, excluding visits to the Macau Special Administrative Region.
Lau Pun Lap, President of the Macau Economic Association, blamed the Covid-19 nucleic acid test requirements for the poor performance while at a recent university seminar.
Macau recorded between almost 15,000 daily visitor arrivals in September, while tourism endorsements for Macau were limited to Guangdong Province for most of the month. The total month saw almost 450,000 visitors, according to government data. The performance in September equated to a rise of about 98% compared to August.
The data also showed that Macau welcomed just over 4 million visitor entries in the first three quarters of this year.
In 2019, Macau welcomed around 40 million visitors, which equates to a daily average of nearly 110,000.
The city continues to welcome only residents of the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. Other passport holders have been banned from entering the city, even if they are willing to quarantine when they arrive in Macau. AL
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