Driven by the Lunar New Year holidays, Macau recorded 3,293,564 visitor arrivals in February, representing year-on-year growth of 110% and a 15.1% increase over January. It also saw visitor numbers recover to 92.9% of the same month in 2019.
According to the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), visitor arrivals in February were mainly dominated by those from mainland China, which increased by 140% year-on-year to 2,449,243. Arrivals from Hong Kong grew 16.3% to 608,739 while arrivals from Taiwan were up 170% to 59,390.
These equated to 95.7%, 92.5% and 71.9% of 2019 levels respectively.
As for foreign visitation, there were 176,192 international arrivals in February, recovering to 71.6% of the same period in 2019.
South Korea, with 41,844 visitor arrivals, was the largest foreign visitor source in February, while the Philippines contributed 39,837 visitors – up 26.2% on February 2019 – and Indonesia 12,471, up 3.2%.
Malaysia (12,265) and Thailand (8,973) also recovered to 91.7% and 92.9% respectively of pre-COVID numbers.
By channel of entry, a total of 2,617,632 visitors arrived by land, representing a 100% year-on-year increase. Of these, 1,221,115 entered Macau via the Border Gate, 758,428 via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and 457,977 via the Hengqin Port.
Visitor arrivals by sea (427,798) and by air (248,134) increased by 110% and 120% year-on-year respectively.
For the first two months of 2024 combined, the number of visitor arrivals expanded grew by 106% year-on-year to 6,155,173, including 3,347,758 same-day visitors and 2,807,415 overnight visitors (2,807,415).