Macau recorded a total of 5.70 million visitor arrivals for full-year of 2022, down 26.0 percent year-on-year, according to data released on Friday by Macau’s Statistics and Census Service. The 2022 tally was the lowest number of annual visitor arrivals to Macau since 1999, showed the official figures.
During most of last year, Macau had in place a number of travel restrictions as countermeasures for Covid-19. Mainland China was the only place that had a largely quarantine-free travel arrangement with the city until late December.
Mainland Chinese visitor arrivals made up nearly 90 percent – or just above 5.11 million – of Macau’s 2022 aggregate visitor arrivals, according to the statistics bureau. Those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) – with the majority from Guangdong province – reached 1.68 million in 2022, down 31.3 percent from the previous year.
Of the 5.10 million mainland Chinese visitors that came to Macau in 2022, 70.0 percent were from Guangdong province.
The 2022 visitor tally marked a historical low for Macau. The aggregate number was even lower than the 5.90 million visitor arrivals recorded in 2020, a year marked by the onset of the pandemic.
During 2022, Macau received circa 3.22 million same-day visitors and 2.48 million overnight visitors, down 19.8 percent and 32.8 percent respectively in year-on-year terms. The average length of stay of visitors for full-2022 was 1.5 days, with that of the overnighters at 3.4 days.
For December alone, the city received 389,390 visitors, representing a 6.2 percent sequential increase. But the December tally marked a 52.6 percent year-on-year decline, coinciding with a wave of Covid-19 infections in Macau and mainland China.
