The number of visitor arrivals into Macau surged by 101.3% year-on-year and 259.0% month-on-month to 1,397,748 in January, buoyed by the easing of almost all border restrictions from January 8 and the Chinese New Year holiday that followed.
According to information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), January’s visitor tally was the highest in three years with the number of visitors staying at least one night rising 234.5% year-on-year to 816,199 while same-day visitors grew by 29.1% to 581,549. The average length of stay of visitors subsequently increased by 0.3 days to 1.6 days.
Mainland China was the main source of visitation with 991,641 arrivals, of which 707,360 arrived under the Individual Visit Scheme. Hong Kong also contributed 356,958 visitors, up 704% year-on-year, and Taiwan 18,868 visitors, up 139%.
Visitors from the nine Pearl River Delta cities in the Greater Bay Area increased by 47.6% year-on-year to 608,336, of which 23.7% came from Zhuhai (144,262) and 22.5% came from Guangzhou (136,594).
By checkpoint, there were 592,191 arrivals via the Border Gate in January, up 23.2%, another 267,390 by the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and 231,771 by the Hengqin Port. Another 149,649 arrived by sea following the resumption of ferry services while there were 95,163 arrivals by air for the month.