Macau is looking to boost its tally of overseas visitors by attracting people arriving by air to the neighbouring Chinese-mainland cities of Guangzhou or Shenzhen, in Guangdong province.
So said Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes in remarks to local media on the sidelines of a Thursday event.
Currently, international visitors coming via air usually enter Macau either via the city’s own air hub, Macau International Airport, or via Hong Kong International Airport, noted the tourism boss.
She added that her office would explore means to draw international visitors interested in making “multiple stops” during their trip.
Guangzhou’s airport is about 170 kilometres (105 miles) north of Macau, and circa two hours by road. The journey via high-speed train to Zhuhai, the Guangdong city next door to Macau, takes circa 55 minutes.
Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport is a three-terminal facility and a long-haul passenger hub for China Southern Airlines. The airport serves destinations in Europe and Australia, as well as Asia and other Chinese-mainland cities.
Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, about 66 kms northwest of Hong Kong, serves European destinations as well as places in Asia and domestic routes. The Shekou to Macau ferry route serves Shenzhen’s airport, and takes up to 80 minutes. The journey via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is about 106 kms and takes up to two hours.
In May, Macau received 234,150 visitors from international markets, i.e., places outside the Greater China region, according to the latest data available from the city’s Statistics and Census Service. The tally was up 0.8 percent year-on-year.
The growth in the number of international visitors from May onward had slowed compared to the first four months of 2026, noted Ms Senna Fernandes in her Thursday comments.
She said factors in the easing included “high fuel costs”, and the June start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, a major football tournament. The latter had diverted demand for tourism to Macau, she suggested.
For the first five months of this year, Macau received an aggregate of 1.24 million international visitors, up 8.8 percent year-on-year. That tally represented 6.8 percent of the city’s overall 18.14 million visitors in the January to May period, the statistics service’s data show.
