Macau CNY visitor traffic down 72pct in first 5 days

Feb 17, 2021 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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The average number of visitor arrivals to Macau on the first five days of the Chinese New Year break stood about 12,600 a day, according to official data. The latest figures put the number of visitor arrivals to the city at 62,984 between February 11 and February 15 (Monday), down 71.6 percent from the comparable period in 2020.

The preliminary figures from the city’s Public Security Police were compiled by the Macao Government Tourism Office. The data compares with the 2020 Chinese New Year period, from January 24 to January 30, just before the February onset of the Covid-19 pandemic that saw a slump in Macau’s tourist traffic.

The number of mainland visitor arrivals in the first five days of the holiday period this year was 57,226, down 55.0 percent from a year earlier. Mainland China is currently the only place to have a largely quarantine-free travel bubble with Macau.

China’s State Council has designated February 11 to 17 inclusive, as the Chinese New Year holiday period for 2021.

The week-long break – linked annually to the lunar calendar and also known as the spring “Golden Week” – is typically a busy period for Macau’s casino resorts and the city’s tourism trade.

But this year, a number of local governments in mainland China has urged citizens “to minimise” trips outside their province or city for the upcoming holiday season, as a countermeasure regarding Covid-19.

Senior executives at some Macau casino operators were mildly optimistic about likely business volumes for this month’s week-long holiday break. Trading for Chinese New Year would in likelihood be “more like an October Golden Week situation than the Christmas and Western New Year period,” said recently Ian Coughlan, Wynn Macau Ltd president.

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