The number of visitor arrivals into Macau fell 30.2% year-on-year and 19.6% month-on-month to 526,912 in March, impacted by rising COVID-19 cases across parts of mainland China and related border restrictions.
According to details from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), the number of visitor arrivals from mainland China fell by 31.9% year-on-year to 468,995 of which 91,099 entered Macau under the Individual Visit Scheme. Visitors from the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta in the Greater Bay Area totalled 314,517, with 70.2% of those coming from Zhuhai. There were 52,862 visitors from Hong Kong and 4,867 from Taiwan.
Same-day visitors increased by 5.7% year-on-year in March, however overnight visitors decreased by 61.2%. As a result, the average length of stay of visitors decreased by 0.4 days to 1.2 days year-on-year.
For the first three months of 2022 combined, visitor arrivals increased by 8.0% year-on-year to 1,876,847, with same-day visitors up by 46.0% to 1,196,122 and overnight visitors falling 25.9% to 680,725. The average length of stay of visitors decreased by 0.4 days year-on-year to 1.3 days.
Affected by the decrease in tourists, Macau’s gaming revenue fell 55.8% year-on-year and 53.7% month-on-month to MOP$3.67 billion (US$459 million) in March, according to figures published by the Gaming Inspection and Coordination on 1 April 2022.