GGRAsia – March 18 Macau arrivals nearly 100k, best since pandemic

March 18 Macau arrivals nearly 100k, best since pandemic

Mar 23, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau had 96,000 inbound visitors on Saturday, March 18, the highest daily tally so far this year and the best since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, said Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) in a Thursday update.

The average daily inbound visitor volume in Macau had been circa 65,000 for the period running from March 1 to 22, a 13.4-percent increase on the daily average in February, the statement also mentioned.

The annnouncment reiterated that Macau had registered almost 3 million inbound visitors in January and February combined, a period that coincided with the lifting in early January for mainland China, Macau, and Hong Kong, of most Covid-19 -related countermeasures.

At an event on Thursday morning, MGTO deputy director, Ricky Hoi Io Meng, told local media that the number of inbound visitors from Hong Kong had already reached “over 80 percent of the pre-Covid 19 level”, while that from mainland China had recovered to “50 percent” of pre-Covid 19 level.

In his Thursday comments, the MGTO official also mentioned his office planned to extend to June a promotional offer on travel subsidies for visitors from Hong Kong.

In 2019 the average daily volume of inbound visitors from Hong Kong was just above 20,000, while that from mainland China was circa 76,500, according to information from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service. The two places constituted the most significant feeder markets for Macau tourism trade in that year, as combined they accounted for 89.6 percent of Macau’s 39.4-million visitor arrivals.

Mr Hoi said Macau’s volume of international visitors was still “relatively low”, due to “transport constraints”.

Some of the city’s air links have been resumed after pandemic-related interruption, while other service routes that had persisted during the three-year crisis, have now seen an upping in their flight frequency. During the pandemic most flights were only serving the Chinese mainland.

In other Thursday commentary at the same event where MGTO’s Mr Hoi spoke, an official from Macau airport’s operator said that while the daily tally of flights had recovered to “70 percent” of the same period in 2019, the volume of passengers was at no more than 40 percent of pre-pandemic performance for the same time of year.

Eric Fong Hio Kin, marketing department director at Macau International Airport Co Ltd, said the current daily volume of passengers, i.e., “9,000 to 10,000”, amounted to circa 30 percent to 40 percent of the same period in 2019. In March 2019, the Macau airport handled a daily average of 25,200 passengers, according to its own statistics.

The airport operator is anticipating a further pickup in flight volume for the “summer schedule” – which it counts typically as from the end of March to the end of October – as more air links between Macau and Southeast Asia were set to resume, Mr Fong told the media.