Macau might see “over 100,000” visitor arrivals daily on average for the upcoming Easter holiday period, says Macau Travel Industry Council president, Andy Wu Keng Kuong.
Mr Wu cited the figure to local Chinese-language newspaper, Macao Daily News.
Easter is not a public holiday period on the Chinese mainland, but it is for Macau and in neighbouring Hong Kong. For the latter, this year’s Easter break covers March 29 (Good Friday) to April 1 (Easter Monday).
Subsequent to the Easter season this year, Hong Kong – along with mainland China and Macau – also observes the Chinese festival Ching Ming as a public holiday. This year’s Ching Ming period on mainland China is designated by the authorities as from April 4 (a Thursday) to April 6 (a Saturday); while in Hong Kong, the holiday is confined to April 4.
Macau currently has circa “70,000 to 80,000” visitor arrivals daily on average, said Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) deputy director, Ricky Hoi Io Meng, in comments to the local press at a Friday event. The city had however seen visitor volume exceeding “100,000” on March 10, a Sunday, noted the MGTO official.
Mr Hoi said his office believed that Hong Kong would drive Macau’s inbound Easter visitor traffic this year, as it had in previous years.
In 2023, Macau’s overall visitor arrivals tallied 481,765 for the six-day period from April 5 – the Chinese festival of Ching Ming – to April 10 inclusive, the end of the Easter season that time, according to data from Macau’s Public Security Police. That meant the daily average for the six days was just over 80,000.
In 2019 – the immediate trading year before the advent of Covid-19 – Macau has received over 550,000 visitor arrivals during April 19 to April 22, the period marked in Hong Kong as the Easter break in that year, according to the archive data from the Public Security Police. That meant the daily average for the four days was over 137,000.
