Macau’s visitation numbers continue to climb, with September seeing an 8% increase in arrivals to 2,764,924, according to information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
However, the quality of visitors is on a downward spiral with the length of visitation down by 0.1 days year-on-year to 1.3 days and same day visitors now accounting for more than half of all arrivals.
September saw same-day visitors increase by 20.4% to 1,388,301, pushing the proportion to 50.2% of all visitors. Overnight visitors fell 2.3% to 1,376,623.
The declining length of visitation may be related to mode of transport, with land arrivals surging 32.5% year-on-year to 2,053,534 in September, including a 14.7% rise in arrivals via the Border Gate to 1,548,747. Another 287,362 entered Macau via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, however ferry arrivals plummeted 45.0% to 416,713.
For the first three quarters of 2019, visitor arrivals grew 17.0% to 30,202,906 with same-day visitors up 30.6% to 15,929,175 – comprising 52.7% of all arrivals – and overnight visitors up 4.9% to 14,273,731.