Visitors surge in February, overnight stays shorten

The number of visitors to Macau last month surged significantly, information from the Statistics and Census Service has indicated.

Arrivals in February totaled 1,593,743, a surge of 143.1% year-on-year and also an increase month-on-month of 14% compared with January this year.

Although both the overnight visitors (843,402) and same-day visitors (750,341) soared respectively by 201.8% and 99.5% year-on-year, the average length of stay has shortened by 0.2-day year-on-year to 1.3 days.

Overnight visitors stayed for a shorter period (2.2 days), a drop of 1.1 days, while same-day visitors stayed longer (0.3 days) – a rise of 0.2 days.

In the first two months of this year, arrivals expanded by 121.6% year-on-year to 2,991,491; overnight visitors (1,659,601) and same-day visitors (1,331,890) jumped by 217% and 61.2% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors remained steady year-on-year at 1.4 days, with that of overnight visitors (2.4 days) decreasing by 0.9 days, whereas that of same-day visitors (0.3 days) rose 0.2 days.

Mainland visitors continue to top the visitors’ source list, growing 64.8% year-on-year to 1,003,999, with those traveling under the Individual Visit Scheme (634,538) surging 222.9%.

Among these, the visitors from the nine cities in the Greater Bay Area increased 43.7% year-on-year to 552,094, 27.9% of whom came from Zhuhai (154,210) and 21% came from Guangzhou (115,876). Visitors from Hong Kong (523,271) and Taiwan (22,411) skyrocketed by 1,163.7% and 372.6% year-on-year respectively as a consequence of the border reopening.

Most visitors continue to arrive via land borders, with 50.1% arriving through the checkpoint of Border Gate (642,521), 32.5% coming via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (416,899), and 12.5% via the Hengqin port (160,889). In addition, arrivals by sea and by air leaped by 1,107.4% and 121.6% year-on-year to 199,523 and 112,160 respectively.