GGRAsia – Macau visitor tally up 255pct in March, but 1Q down

Macau visitor tally up 255pct in March, but 1Q down

Apr 22, 2021 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

The aggregate of visitors to Macau in March rose by 255.4 percent from a year earlier, to 754,541. The figure was up 76.7 percent month-on-month, according to data released on Thursday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.

The number of mainland visitors grew by 674.4 percent year-on-year in March, to 688,353. They accounted for about 91.2 percent of all visitors to Macau last month.

Currently only mainland China has a largely quarantine-free travel bubble with Macau.

Visitors classified as travelling from nine cities within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, amounted to 388,094 of March’s arrivals, or 51.4 percent of Macau’s total that month.

Those mainlanders using China’s exit visa initiative for independent travellers, known as the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS), accounted for 268,302 entries to Macau in March, compared to 6,813 a year ago.

The March tally of overnight visitors (404,936), and same-day visitors – at 349,605 – rose by 221.6 percent and 304.6 percent year-on-year respectively.

In the first three months of 2021, the tally of Macau visitor arrivals declined by 46.0 percent year-on-year to nearly 1.74 million, showed the latest data from the statistics bureau.

The first-quarter aggregate of overnight visitors (919,192) and same-day visitors – at 819,236 – shrank by 39.6 percent and 51.8 percent year-on-year respectively.