Macau recorded around 210 million entries and exits at its border checkpoints in 2024, the highest annual number on record, the Public Security Police (PSP) have announced.
According to a PSP statement on New Year’s Day, last year’s total number of entries and exits increased 17.5 percent from the around 180 million recorded in 2023, while the number in 2024 was even higher than in pre-pandemic 2019, a 10.3 percent increase from the around 190 million recorded that year.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected Macau for three years between early 2020 and late 2022, which severely impacted the city’s economy in general, its gaming and tourism sectors in particular. The economy started its post-pandemic gradual recovery in early 2023.
According to previous PSP announcements, the cumulative number of entries and exits at Macau’s border checkpoints, starting January 1, 2024, already exceeded the 200 million-benchmark on December 7, having already broken the previous annual record of the whole of 2019 (around 190 million).
According to Wednesday’s PSP statement, the Barrier Gate checkpoint recorded 110 million entries and exits last year, representing 52.7 percent of the total, while the Qingmao checkpoint, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge’s (HZMB) Macau checkpoint, and the Hengqin checkpoint recorded 35.09 million, 26.17 million and 22.81 million entries and exits, accounting for 16.3 percent, 12.2 percent and 10.6 percent of the total respectively.
The statement underlined that the Qingmao checkpoint was “effective” in diverting the flow of border crossers from the nearby Barrier Gate checkpoint last year.
The statement also said that in addition to the highest annual number of entries and exits at all Macau’s checkpoints on record, the city’s 2024 checkpoint entry and exit statistics also broke different types of records. On August 24, 2024, the statement said, all Macau’s checkpoints recorded 753,000 entries and exits, the highest daily number on record.
In addition, the statement said, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge’s (HZMB) Macau checkpoint had its highest daily number of entries and exits on record on February 12, 2024, when 131,000 entries and exits were recorded.
According to the statement, the Hengqin checkpoint recorded 103,000 entries and exits on October 3, 2024, its highest daily number on record.
Macau logs 34.93 million visitors in 2024
Meanwhile, the PSP statement also announced that Macau recorded 34.93 million visitor arrivals in 2024, a 23.6 percent growth from 2023, returning to 88.6 percent of the level recorded in pre-pandemic 2019.
According to the statement, Macau recorded 24.48 million visitor arrivals from the mainland last year, representing 70.1 percent of the total, a 28.6 percent increase from 2023, while the number of visitor arrivals from Hong Kong, China’s Taiwan region and foreign countries accounted for 20.6 percent, 2.4 percent and 6.9 percent of the total respectively.
However, according to the statement, the number of visitor arrivals from Hong Kong last year dropped 0.8 percent from 2023, while the number of those from Taiwan and foreign countries rose 64.1 percent and 66 percent from 2023 respectively.
The PSP data on visitor arrivals in 2024 announced yesterday will be slightly adjusted by Macau’s official statistics agency, Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC), which is scheduled to announce Macau’s 2024 number of visitor arrivals and their composition on January 21.
In the first 11 months of 2024, according to DSEC announcements last month, Macau recorded 31.88 million visitor arrivals, a year-on-year increase of 26.2 percent from the same period of 2023.
Meanwhile, starting on New Year’s Day, permanent residents of Zhuhai City can apply for a “one trip per week” travel permit to Macau, enabling them to visit Macau once per calendar week, with a maximum stay of seven days per trip, within a one-year validity period, while permanent residents or residence permit holders in the Guangdong-Macau In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin can apply for a multi-entry travel permit to Macau, granting them unlimited visits to Macau within a one-year validity period, with a maximum stay of seven days per trip.
A separate PSP statement on New Year’s Day said that as of 6 p.m. that day, Macau recorded 1,742 visitor arrivals holding their “one trip per week” travel permits on Wednesday, while 406 visitor arrivals holding their multi-entry travel permits were recorded.
This photo taken last week shows border crossers on their way to Zhuhai’s Gongbei checkpoint after completing departure formalities at Macau’s Barrier Gate checkpoint. – Photo: Tony Wong
