China’s National Immigration Administration on Tuesday said it has observed a “notable” year-on-year increase in the number of Macau-bound visitors from the neighbouring mainland city of Zhuhai since January 1, coinciding with mainland exit-visa easing measures for Zhuhai residents, that came into effect from that date.
The body said that since January 1, there were 257,000 Macau-bound trips made by Zhuhai residents, up 26.1-percent year-on-year.
It was not clear from the announcement, how many of those 257,000 trips were made under general travel visas. The possession either of a Macau student visa or a Macau work visa, are other means for Zhuhai residents to exit Zhuhai and enter Macau. The Macau side does not count such travellers as “visitors”.
The Tuesday commentary was part of the national immigration authorities’ review of China domestic travel data, and of border-control work carried out in the past year.
In November, the mainland side announced two forms of travel easing for those for people from Zhuhai wishing to go to Macau. One was so-called “one-trip-per-week” exit visas for Zhuhai residents to visit Macau for up to seven days at a time. The other was that mainlanders resident in Hengqin – also part of Zhuhai city, though with special economic status – can apply for a multiple-entry visa to travel to Macau.
The National Immigration Administration said that since January 1, the authorities have issued for Zhuhai to Macau travel, 59,000 “one-trip-per-week” visas, and over 6,000 multiple-entry visas. With the multiple-entry visa, Hengqin residents have no limit on the number of Macau-bound trips they can make in any one year, though the stay for each trip is capped at seven days.
Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes had mentioned in Friday comments to the media, that the mainland easing measures relating to Zhuhai city had coincided with a rise in Macau’s overall inbound visitor volume.
The MGTO boss said Macau’s daily average visitor arrival figures for January 3 to January 5 – a Friday to a Sunday – exceeded 100,000.
For the whole of January 2024, Macau had logged 2.86 million visitor arrivals, a daily average of 92,310. Of those, 71.9 percent were from the mainland, according to data from Statistics and Census Service. In that month, Macau logged 297,951 visitor arrivals from Zhuhai.
