Overall visitor arrivals to Macau during the eight-day Chinese New Year (CNY) festivities reached almost 1.36 million, the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) announced on Sunday. The average hotel occupancy rate for the period stood at 95.2 percent, as detailed in the same press release.
The tourism body stated the visitor figures for the festive period were “well beyond expectations”. MGTO had anticipated Macau would have a daily average of circa 120,000 visitors during the holiday break.
The update said the actual figures “mirror the positive trend of tourism recovery” for the city.
Average daily visitor arrivals for the Chinese New Year period were 169,725, closely approaching the 2019 level of 171,702 arrivals per day, recorded before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Macau had recorded more than 1.21 million visitor arrivals during the seven-day Chinese New Year period of 2019.
The eight-day festival this calendar year took place from February 10 to February 17. Notably, last year’s holiday spanned seven days, starting on January 21, 2023, shortly after the lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions for mainland China, Macau, and Hong Kong.
February 12 this time – the third day of the Chinese New Year – marked Macau’s highest single-day figure for visitors since 2019, and the second-highest on record, with nearly 218,000 arrivals.
During the eight-day Chinese New Year period, visitor arrivals from mainland China totalled almost 1.04 million, constituting approximately 76.2 percent of the total visitor arrivals for the period. The average daily tally for arrivals from the Chinese mainland was around 129,000, surpassing the 2019 level with a recovery rate of 101.3 percent, according to MGTO.
The average daily volumes of Hong Kong and international visitors rebounded to 97.8 percent (32,000) and 78.5 percent (6,600), respectively, compared to the levels observed during the Chinese New Year period in 2019.
Macau’s hotel establishments, including hotels, apartment hotels, and budget accommodations, reported an average room rate of around MOP1,922 (US$240) during the Chinese New Year period, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 23.4 percent, said MGTO.
Industry operators provided the figures to MGTO, indicating also a nearly 10 percentage point year-on-year increase in the average occupancy rate for the period. The hotel occupancy rate reached its peak at 97.9 percent on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year (13 February).
