Macau has enjoyed a dramatic surge in visitation during the first half of Golden Week, with visitor numbers up 28.2% year-on-year to 401,937 during the three days from Monday 4 to Wednesday 6 February.
Even more encouraging for the SAR has been the consistency of numbers over the course of the three days. Visitation grew 21.7% on the first day of the Chinese New Year holiday period to 84,799, by 31.6% on day two to 141,306 and by 28.8% on day three to 175,832.
Of the combined three-day visitation, 175,589 arrived via the border gate while 71,766 entered Macau through the checkpoint of the recently opened Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. Another 86,000 arrived by ferry.
The numbers point to expected strong results for Macau’s casinos for the month of February, coming after Asia’s gaming hub experienced its first year-on-year decline since July 2016 in January with GGR down 5%.
Analysts are predicting a year-on-year increase of up to 9% for February 2019.