Macau logged an aggregate of more than 303,000 visitor arrivals during the first two days of the ongoing mainland Chinese holiday season commonly called ‘October Golden Week’.
The update was given by Macau’s Public Security Police, the agency responsible for monitoring the region’s immigration checkpoints.
According to the preliminary data, the city welcomed a total of 139,854 visitors on Wednesday (October 1). The figure increased to 163,932 on Thursday, pushing the aggregate for the first two days of the holiday period to 303,786.
The police did not supply a breakdown on holiday-period visitors’ respective place of origin. However, the majority of tourists for the aggregate of the first two days entered Macau via the Border Gate checkpoint (142,568 arrivals), the Hengqin checkpoint (60,989 arrivals), or the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (42,449 arrivals).
Separate information provided by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) indicated that 117,650 of the visitors that entered the city on Wednesday were from mainland China. Another 14,596 visitors on the first day of the holiday break came from Hong Kong, showed the data.
October Golden Week is a major festive break for mainland China consumers and a peak trading period for Macau’s casinos. Mainland China is the main feeder market for Macau’s tourism sector.
China’s State Council has designated this year’s holiday period on the mainland as running from October 1 to 8, encompassing China’s National Day on October 1 and the lunar calendar-based Mid-Autumn Festival, which this year falls on October 6.
MGTO’s director, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, said in recent commentary that Macau was likely to receive 1.2 million visitors during the eight-day holiday period, based on an estimate of 150,000 visitors per day.
This year’s October Golden Week holiday is to be one day longer than the same period in 2024. In the comparable period a year earlier – from October 1 to 7 – Macau welcomed 993,117 visitors, according to MGTO data.
