GGRAsia – Macau logs 492k tourist arrivals in Labour Day break period

Macau logs 492k tourist arrivals in Labour Day break period

May 04, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

The number of tourist arrivals to Macau during the five-day mainland China holiday surrounding Labour Day stood at 491,968, according to preliminary data released by the city’s Public Security Police.

The local authorities did not provide any year-on-year comparison.

Macau recorded 53,298 visitor arrivals on Wednesday, the last day of the Labour Day break.

The police did not supply a breakdown on visitors’ respective place of origin. But almost 62 percent of the tourists – circa 303,000 arrivals – entered Macau via border checkpoints solely serving people arriving from, or departing to, mainland China. Other checkpoints that typically have a wider mixture of travellers in terms of point of origin are at Macau’s airport, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, and the city’s two busiest maritime terminals.

China’s State Council had designated April 29 to May 3 inclusive as the Labour Day holiday period on the mainland, a period sometimes referred to by the investment community as “May Golden Week”.

On Sunday (April 30), Macau recorded 133,911 arrivals, its highest daily total since early 2020, before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the figures released by the authorities.

The daily average for the five-day period was just below 98,400, showed the preliminary figures from the police.

In pre-pandemic times, the Labour Day break period has commonly generated high demand for Macau’s casino and tourism services. In 2019 – the most recent pre-crisis trading period – Macau recorded 531,503 visitor arrivals for the first three days of the Labour Day holiday period, an average of approximately 177,000 a day, according to official data.

Last month, Macau had welcomed more than 404,000 visitors during a different holiday period encompassing the Ching Ming Festival and Easter.

The city cancelled with effect from January 8 most of its travel restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, dropping all testing requirements for inbound travellers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.