More than 2.5 million visitors arrived in Macau in September, up 3% year-on-year but down 24.7% sequentially, according to figures released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) on Tuesday.
The numbers were negatively impacted by the effects of Typhoon Mangkhut which battered Macau during the weekend of 15 and 16 September.
As previously reported by Inside Asian Gaming, Union Gaming’s Grant Govertsen said after the storm that “damage to Macau was very slight and that GGR could be impacted by upwards of 700 bps relative to our initial +14% forecast for the month.”
September GGR ultimately saw year-on-year growth of just 2.8% to MOP$21.9 billion, a major contraction from 17.1% growth in August.
DSEC data indicated that the number of mainland Chinese visitors increased 5.7% year-on-year to 1.8 million during the month, with those arriving under the Individual Visit Scheme soared 10.3% to 788,426.
On the other hand, visitors from the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan decreased by 4.4%, 1.6% and 3.7% respectively in September.
By mode of transport, airport and land arrivals increased by 18.9% and 9.6% year-on-year respectively while ferry arrivals decreased 11.8%.
Aggregate arrivals from January to September were up 8.3% year-on-year, totaling 25.8 million. Chinese Mainlanders led the figures with an increase of 13.3% in the period.