The Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) announced in a statement on Friday that Macau’s visitor arrivals increased by 21.6 percent year-on-year to 2.69 million in May, recovering to 79.3 percent of the figure in the same month of pre-pandemic 2019.
Macau confirmed its first COVID-19 case in January 2020.
The figure also represented a 3.5 percent rise month-on-month, according to the statement.
The statement said that same-day visitors (1.43 million) and overnight visitors (1.26 million) showed a growth of 27.2 percent and 15.9 percent respectively year-on-year. Moreover, visitors’ average length of stay remained unchanged year-on-year, at 1.2 days. The statement added that the duration for same-day visitors remained unchanged at 0.2 day, while that for overnight visitors rose by 0.1 day to 2.3 days.
Moreover, visitors from the mainland increased by 25.9 percent year-on-year to 1.85 million in May, with those travelling under the mainland authorities’ Individual Visit Scheme (893,373) rising by 6.3 percent.
The statement said that visitors from the nine mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area (932,961) rose by 30.3 percent year-on-year.
Moreover, visitors from Hong Kong (582,083) dropped by 3.3 percent year-on-year while those from Taiwan (68,971) surged by 118.7 percent. The number of Hong Kong visitors returned to the May 2019 level, while the numbers of visitors from the mainland and Taiwan rebounded to 76.5 percent and 78.5 percent of the corresponding levels in the same month of 2019.
Foreign visitors jumped by 74.4 percent year-on-year to 184,854 in May, back to 61.3 percent of the figure in the same month of 2019, according to the statement.
The statement added that visitor arrivals by land grew by 20.5 percent year-on-year to 2.10 million in May. Meanwhile, visitor arrivals by sea (332,341) and by air (259,029) respectively increased by 6.6 percent and 63.7 percent year-on-year.
Moreover, the statement said that the number of visitor arrivals in the first five months expanded by 50.2 percent year-on-year to 14.16 million, recovering to 82.4 percent of the level in the same period in 2019. Same-day visitors (7.57 million) and overnight visitors (6.59 million) grew by 67.1 percent and 34.5 percent year-on-year respectively.
This photo taken last week shows visitors crowding Rua do Cunha in Taipa. -Photo: Rui Pastorin
