The Public Security Police (PSP) announced in a statement last night that Macau recorded 186,000 visitor arrivals between Friday last week and Tuesday, 25 percent of the 750,000 recorded during the same period of 2019.
The statement said that Macau’s visitor arrivals reached 45,000 last Saturday, which is the highest number recorded since COVID-19 started to impact Macau in January last year.
The statement also said that the five-day period (April 30 to May 4) had a daily average number of visitor arrivals of 37,000, about 40 percent more than the 26,000 visitor arrivals recorded per day on average last month.
The mainland’s May Day “Golden Week” this year lasted for five days from Saturday last week to yesterday (May 1 to May 5).
The statement also said that Friday last week saw the highest number of entries and exits at the city’s border checkpoints of 400,000 a day since COVID-19 emerged in Macau in January last year.
According to the statement, the police recorded 330,000 entries and exits at the Barrier Gate checkpoint, 34,000 at the Hengqin checkpoint, 12,000 at the Macau checkpoint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB), 7,000 at the airport, and 2,500 at the Inner Harbour Ferry Terminal – which serves the Macau-Wanzai ferry service – on Friday last week, all hitting record numbers since the COVID-19 outbreak, the statement said.
Last night’s PSP statement also said that Macau had a relatively higher number of visitor arrivals during the five-day period, as the mainland authorities did not require people to remain where they live and work during this year’s May Day “Golden Week”, apart from the fact that nowadays those travelling between Macau and the mainland are not required to undergo quarantine.
Macau recorded its first COVID-19 case on January 22 last year.
Macau’s immigration service is run by the Public Security Police.
Tourist Police officers walk among visitors in Rua de S. Paulo on Monday. Photo: Iong Tat Choi
