Macau's visitor arrivals dropped 98.8 percent year on year and 97.4 percent month on month to 9,759 in July, the lowest since April 2020 when they numbered 11,041, according to data released by the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) yesterday.
In July, Macau recorded 7,189 same-day visitors and 2,570 overnight visitors. Mainlanders accounted for 75 percent of all visitors last month, which also recorded 497 visitors from Hong Kong and 1,877 from Taiwan.
Macau detected the first case of its recent COVID-19 outbreak on June 18. Thanks to strict anti-pandemic measures by the local government, the outbreak has meanwhile subsided. Macau's around three dozen casinos were closed by government order on July 11-22. They were also closed for a fortnight in February 2020 in response to the pandemic.
In the first seven months, Macau recorded 3.47 million visitor arrivals, down by 26.3 percent year on year.
Casinos, shopping, dining-out and UNESCO World Heritage sites are Macau's top tourist attractions, according to tour guides.
In December 2019, the last month in Macau not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the city welcomed 3.08 million visitor arrivals, according to DSEC data.
In 2019, Macau logged 39.4 million visitor arrivals. Last year's number of visitor arrivals stood at 7.7 million.
Caption: Undated file photo of tourists visiting Macau's UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ruins of St. Paul's landmark - Photo courtesy of GI
