Visitor arrivals to Macau grew by 25.6% year-on-year to 3,396,835, boosted by a huge 43.3% surge in same-day visitation.
The figure pushes the total number of visitors over the first five months of 2019 to 17,188,780, representing a 21.0% increase compared with the prior year period. Overnight visitors (7,957,408) and same-day visitors (9,231,372) rose by 8.7% and 34.0% respectively.
Notably, the increase in same-day visitation saw the average length of stay during May decrease by 0.1 days to 1.2 days, while the average length of stay between January and May has dropped to just 1.1 days. Overnight visitors stayed an average of 2.3 days in May, up by 0.1 days, with, the average length of stay of same-day visitors holding stable at 0.2 days.
The launch of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge late last year saw a significant increase in the number of arrivals by land to 2,525,698 in May, up 32.2% year-on-year, including 1,768,211 via the Border Gate and 517,060 via the bridge. Visitor arrivals by air also increased by 21.3% to 324,218, but ferry traffic decreased by 39.2% to 546,919.