Macau visitors up in Sept after three months of decline

Oct 26, 2015 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Macau attracted 2.42 million visitors in September, up slightly by 0.4 percent year-on-year, data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service showed on Monday. Last month’s growth follows three consecutive months of decline in the number of visitor arrivals to the city when judged year-on-year.

Monday’s data showed that the average length of stay of visitors increased by 0.2 day year-on-year to 1.2 days last month. Overnight and same-day visitors had an average stay of 2.2 days and 0.2 day respectively.

In September the number of visitors from mainland China decreased by 1.4 percent year-on-year to 1.57 million. The number of mainlanders travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme – which allows mainland passport holders to visit Macau and Hong Kong as independent travellers rather than as part of a tour group – rose slightly by 0.6 percent.

Mainland Chinese accounted for 66.6 percent of the aggregate number of visitors in the first nine months this year – or 15.21 million visitors – down by 3.8 percent year-on-year.

Macau’s visitor arrivals in the nine months to September 30 are down 2.9 percent from the prior-year period to 22.85 million. The monthly tally of visitors to Macau has declined year-on-year in six of the first nine months of 2015.

The city’s tourist price index, which reflects the price change of goods and services purchased by visitors, fell by 2.7 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2015, according to official data. It was the first year-on-year decline in tourist prices in more than 12 years.

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