Overall visitor arrivals to Macau in 2024 were just under 34.93 million, an increase of 23.8 percent year-on-year, and 88.6 percent of the pre-pandemic trading year of 2019. That is according to data released on Tuesday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
The official figures show that the number of overnight visitors in 2024 rose by 12.8 percent from the prior year, to just above 16.04 million, accounting for 45.9 percent of overall arrivals. The number of same-day visitors was up 35.0 percent year-on-year, to about 18.88 million.
The statistics bureau said that “in view of the growth in the proportion of same-day visitors, the average length of stay of visitors (1.2 days) shortened by 0.1 day year-on-year in 2024, with that of overnight visitors remaining unchanged at 2.3 days”.
The aggregate of visitors from mainland China in 2024 – as a proportion of all visitors – went up 2.6 percentage points year-on-year, to 70.1 percent, or 24.49 million in arrivals terms. The number of arrivals from mainland China registered a 28.6 percent year-on-year gain.
In 2023, mainlanders were 67.5 percent of all Macau visitors, or 19.05 million in arrivals terms.
For 2024, mainlanders using Individual Travel Scheme (IVS) exit visas to come to Macau amounted to just over 12.28 million entries. That was 50.1 percent of all mainland visitors for the 12 months, and an increase of 15.5 percent year-on-year.
In 2024, 10 cities on the Chinese mainland were added to the IVS system, two in February and another eight in May.
For last year, visitors from neighbouring Hong Kong – Macau’s second-biggest individual source market – registered a 0.2 percent decline year-on-year, to just under 7.18 million. Nonetheless, that segment had recovered to 97.6 percent of the 7.35 million recorded in 2019.
The tally of 2024 visitors from Taiwan went up 64.1 percent from a year earlier, to 834,411.
For 2024, overseas visitors – a segment the Macau government wants to see grow significantly, even relative to pre-pandemic trading – went up 66.0 percent year-on-year, to just over 2.42 million. That was a 79.0 percent recovery on 2019’s nearly 3.07 million overseas visitors.
For last year, among Southeast Asia source markets, the contributions from the Philippines (493,399), Indonesia (183,062) and Malaysia (181,941) went up year-on-year by 57.1 percent, 28.1 percent and 82.2 percent respectively.
The contribution from Thailand (134,658) and Singapore (119,201) rose by 31.8 percent and 29.8 percent respectively.
The total from India (103,817) rose 76.5 percent year-on-year, while from the Republic of Korea (492,184) and Japan (126,424) expanded by 140.6 percent and 68.2 percent year-on-year respectively.
Among long-haul markets, the pool of visitors from the United States (147,941) recorded an increase of 57.7 percent year-on-year.
