Macau received just above 3.65 million visitors in August, setting a “new monthly record,” said the city’s Statistics and Census Service in a Monday update. The August tally represented a year-on-year increase of 13.3 percent, and a rise of 0.8 percent from the same month in 2019. Judged sequentially, it grew by 20.9 percent.
The previous monthly record had been set in August 2019, at circa 3.62 million arrivals.
The data showed that same-day visitors, at 2.04 million arrivals, and overnight visitors, at 1.61 million, rose by 23.4 percent and 2.7 percent year-on-year, respectively.
The average length of stay of visitors shortened by 0.1 day in year-on-year terms, to 1.1 days, with that of overnight visitors rising by 0.1 day to 2.3 days, according to the statistics bureau.
The tally of August arrivals from mainland China – the main feeder market for the Macau tourism sector – increased by 18.5 percent year-on-year to just above 2.75 million, with those travelling under the IVS – nearly 1.47 million – rising by 9.3 percent.
Visitors from Hong Kong – also an important feeder market for the Macau tourism industry – tallied 663,449, a dip of 6.8 percent from the prior-year period.
The aggregate of international visitors in August increased by 25.5 percent year-on-year, to 162,331, equal to 75.3 percent of the same month in 2019.
In the first eight months of 2024, the tally of visitor arrivals expanded by 32.7 percent year-on-year to 23.39 million, about 85.3 percent of the same period in 2019, said the statistics bureau.
The number of overseas visitors in the eight months to August 31 reached 1.50 million, corresponding to 68.9 percent of the comparable period in 2029.
The Macau government has a stated policy aim of encouraging its casino concessionaires to draw more of their customers from markets beyond China.
As part of the Macau government’s tender process for new 10-year gaming concessions, bidders were asked to create plans and pledge investment on a number of issues, including bringing in more customers from overseas.
Prior to Covid-19, Macau was overwhelmingly a Chinese tourism market, with mainland China and Hong Kong accounting for 89.6 percent of Macau’s 39.4-million visitor arrivals in 2019, according to Macau government data.
