Macau welcomed more than 312,035 visitors in the three-day weekend from Friday, December 20 – a public holiday in Macau – to Sunday, December 22 inclusive, according to official data. Preliminary figures from the city’s Public Security Police indicate that the average daily number of visitor arrivals during the three-day period was just over 104,010.
For Macau, Friday’s holiday marked the foundation of the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR), a milestone 25th anniversary this time.
China’s President Xi Jinping was in Macau from December 18 to December 20 to take part in the celebrations to mark the anniversary of the city’s handover from Portuguese administration to that of China.
The long-weekend’s highest daily total of visitors was on Sunday, at 124,518, showed the data.
The police did not supply a breakdown on visitors’ respective place of origin during the period. However, the majority of tourists entered Macau either via the Border Gate checkpoint, between Macau and mainland China; or the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.
The Christmas season itself is not a holiday in Macau’s main tourist feeder market, mainland China, but it is an official break period in Macau and in Hong Kong, the latter being Macau’s second-largest source market for visitors.
Up to December 7, Macau had logged more than 32.5 million tourist arrivals during the calendar year, a 25.7-percent increase from a year earlier, according to figures released by the Public Security Police Force.
Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, the director of Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), said earlier this month that the local authorities were “confident” in reaching “33 million” overall visitors for 2024.
“The question is whether we can reach further at 34 million, or a bit more. Hopefully within the remaining half of this month we’ll have good news to tell,” she said in comments to reporters.
Ms Senna Fernandes also said she expected Macau’s average hotel occupancy rate to remain at a high level amid the festive break encompassing Christmas and New Year’s eve.
