Macau’s visit volume rebound for the first 10 months in the overseas and non-Guangdong mainland markets was circa 73 percent of 2019 in each case, while neighbouring Guangdong’s contribution was already at 102.5 percent of that pre-pandemic trading year. That is according to the latest data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service, issued on Thursday, and which added the October figures.
Macau’s October overall visitor arrivals – boosted by the October Golden Week holiday – grew by 13.7 percent year-on-year to nearly 3.14 million. It took the January to October arivals to 29.06 million, up 28.1 percent from a year earlier, and circa 87-percent recovery on the same period in 2019.
The October tally of all mainland visitors grew 16.1 percent year-on-year to 2.26 million, of which 48 percent – or nearly 1.08 million – travelled to the city using the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS). In that month, just over 40,000 visitors came from the 10 cities on the Chinese mainland added earlier this year to the IVS system. Of those, “a majority” was from either Xi’an, Harbin, or Taiyuan, the statistics service said.
From January to October, Guangdong province provided 53 percent of the 20.48 million mainland visitors. The number of Guangdong visitors was up 2.5 percent compared to the first 10 months of 2019.
In the 10-months to October 31, visitor arrivals from other mainland provinces were approximately 9.58 million, or 72.74 percent of the same period in 2019 when the tally had been 13.17 million. In the first 10 months of this year, the top three feeder markets among the non-Guangdong places were the city of Shanghai city (736,932), Zhejiang province (722,149) and Jiangsu province (671,925).
In October, visitor arrivals from Hong Kong – the second-largest market for Macau – reached 590,930, flat from the previous year. The Hong Kong visitors in the first 10 months of this year – tallying 5.99 million – represented a 2.2 percent decline from 2019.
The number of international visitors, or those that come from outside the Greater China market, reached 212,284 in October. That took the international visitor volume of the first 10 months of this year to nearly 1.89 million, representing a circa 73-percent recovery of the comparable period in 2019.
The average stay length of visitors in the first 10 months of this year was 1.2 days. Those that stayed overnight in the city reached 13.43 million, accounting for circa 46 percent of the overall visitor arrivals and representing 16.4-percent growth year-on-year.
