GGRAsia – Visitors to Macau to rise 5 pct in 2017: MGTO

Visitors to Macau to rise 5 pct in 2017: MGTO

May 17, 2017 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of the Macao Government Tourist Office (MGTO), forecasts that the number of tourists visiting Macau in 2017 will show a 5 percent rise compared to 2016. Macau welcomed more than 30.95 million visitors last year, most of them from mainland China and Hong Kong, official data shows.

Macau has seen a more than 5-percent increase in the number of visitor arrivals in the first quarter this year, said on Tuesday Ms Senna Fernandes. She was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia 2017 conference and trade show.

Macau’s visitor arrivals totaled over 7.87 million for the first quarter this year, representing a year-on-year rise of 5.6 percent; of this total number of visitor arrivals, over 5.3 million came from mainland China – a figure that has risen by 7.6 percent year-on-year, according to latest available data from Statistics and Census Service.

On Tuesday, the MGTO director recalled that there has been an increase in visitors coming from greater China and overseas during the Labour Day holiday.

Macau recorded a total of 375,000 visitor arrivals during the Labour Day holiday period (between April 29 and May 1), show official data from the local police.The figure was up by 6.7 percent compared to the prior-year holiday period in 2016.

The MGTO cited industry figures that showed that hotels and guest houses recorded an average occupancy rate of 94.5 percent during that three-day holiday period this year, a year-on-year increase of 2.6 percentage points.