Macau expects a daily average of 120,000 visitors to the city in the eight days of the mainland’s Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday starting on February 10, said on Thursday the city’s tourism boss. That would be at least 50 percent more than the up to 80,000 seen on weekdays so far in January, as cited by Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) director.
The daily average during the weekends had already been over “100,000”, noted the official. Macau had 114,000 arrivals daily, even during the Christmas season of December 23 to 26, which is not a holiday on the Chinese mainland. The lower-end daily figure during January so far had been 70,000.
Ms Senna Fernandes also mentioned in comments to local media on the sidelines of a public event, that for the whole of 2024, Macau aims for “33 million” visitor arrivals, or circa 17 percent more than in 2023. A tally of 33 million would represent an 84-percent recovery in the visitor market relative to 2019, when the city recorded circa 39.4-million arrivals.
The city had circa 28.23 million visitors in full-year 2023, i.e., about 77,000 daily, said the tourism bureau in early January. The official data for 2023 are yet to be announced by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
Macau is overwhelmingly a market for mainland China and Hong Kong visitors. But the city’s tourism authority is seeking – in line with local government policy – to diversify the market structure by bringing in more travellers from overseas.
On Thursday Ms Senna Fernandes mentioned work being done to draw tourists from Northeast and Southeast Asia, with the help of elements such as “roadshows” in places including Thailand and Malaysia, within the first half of this year. MGTO was also targeting side trips to Macau by transit travellers and others using neigbouring Hong Kong’s much bigger airport.
Her office additionally plans to launch marketing campaigns on the Chinese mainland in the second half of the year, to boost tourism from that market.
Brokerage CLSA Ltd said in a Tuesday report on Macau, that “hotel bookings are fast picking up again”. It stated: “At four weeks out from [opening] Chinese New Year weekend – 10 to 11 February – our four-week leading average hotel prices are already 27 percent higher year-on-year.”
The institution added that “10 out of the 33 operating hotels” it tracked were already “fully booked that weekend”.
