Macau’s visitor tally for the eight-day Lunar New Year Golden Week stood at 1.31 million, according to data compiled by GGRAsia, based on official information. The figure was down by 3.5 percent compared to the 2024 Lunar New Year Golden Week.
Macau received a total of 137,283 visitors on Tuesday, the eighth and final day of the mainland China holiday period celebrating the arrival of the lunar new year. The preliminary figure – published by the city’s Public Security Police, the agency responsible for monitoring Macau’s immigration points – was up 9.8 percent compared to the eighth day of the Lunar New Year Golden Week holiday period in 2024.
Confirmed data for the first seven days of the holiday, from the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), show 1,172,312 arrivals in that period, a decline of 4.8 percent compared to the 2024 Lunar New Year Golden Week, which ran from February 10 to February 17 that year.
The lunar new year, a peak business period for Macau’s casinos and hotels, is often referred to as Lunar New Year Golden Week.
The start of the 2025 lunar new year was on January 29. China’s State Council declared the mainland holiday – this time marking the Year of the Snake – as an eight-day period running from January 28 to February 4 inclusive.
For the January 28 to February 3 period, mainland visitors accounted for 891,598 arrivals, down 6.0 percent year-on-year, as per the MGTO data.
During the first seven days of the holiday, visitors from Hong Kong accounted for 208,648 arrivals, representing a 5.4-percent decline, according to MGTO figures.
An industry observer told GGRAsia that one reason for the year-on-year decline in visitor arrivals during the 2025 Lunar New Year Golden Week could be that this year’s official holiday period – as per the State Council – began on the eve of the lunar new year, typically a time when mainland Chinese gather with their families rather than go on leisure trips. In contrast, the 2024 official holiday period on the mainland began on the first day of the lunar new year.
On the first day of the official holiday period this year, Macau reported a total of 78,968 visitor arrivals versus 121,312 in the comparable period in 2024.
