September visitor numbers improve in Macau

Macau reportedly chalked up a 3% increase year-on-year in visitor numbers last month as slightly over 2.56 million people travelled to enjoy the former Portuguese enclave’s extensive selection of shops, hotels and casinos.

City weathers the storm:

According to a report from GGRAsia citing official information from the city’s Statistics and Census Service, the September figure represented a 24.7% decline when set aside the previous month’s almost 3.41 million tally with the overall drop being attributed to the impacts of Typhoon Mangkhut.

Day-tripper tally grows:

The official analysis showed that September saw Macau welcome almost 1.41 million overnight tourists, which represented a 1.9% swell year-on-year, while same-day visits grew by some 4.4% to just over 1.15 million. The 30-day period also purportedly witnessed the average length of stay rise by 0.1 days to reach 1.4 days while the overnight tally improved by 0.2 days to hit 2.4 days.

Mainland China remains most common source:

In terms of where Macau visitors had come from in September, GGRAsia reported that mainland China remained the most common source with over 1.82 million tourists, which represented a boost of 5.7% year-on-year, although second-placed Hong Kong posted a 1.6% decline to 444,005 guests. Furthermore, visitations by those from South Korea registered a 4.4% decline for the month to 58,246 while Taiwan’s tally of 82,999 signified a drop of some 3.7%.

Optimistic American total:

However, the figures from the Statistics and Census Service showed that September saw visits to Macau by tourists from the United States and the United Kingdom post year-on-year increases to 13,448 and 4,108 respectively whereas the tallies for those from Australia and Canada correspondingly dropped to 6,614 and 4,326.

Guangdong dominance:

Back to those that had visited from mainland China and the analysis indicated that tourists had come primarily from Guangdong Province with 719,062 and Hunan Province at 91,921 while the September figure for the city’s Individual Visit Scheme improved by 10.3% year-on-year to hit 788,426.

Bridge benefits:

Analyzed by mode of transport, the September figures from the Statistics and Census Service showed that some 1.55 million tourists had travelled to Macau by land, which represented a boost of 9.6% year-on-year, while the ferry-based tally had dropped by 11.8% to 757,946. Tomorrow’s planned opening of the 34-mile Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is expected to continue this state of affairs as it will slash journey times for Hong Kong visitors from around three hours to less than 30 minutes.

Nine-month figures improve:

The September analysis means that Macau welcomed some 25.81 million visitors over the course of the initial nine months of 2018, which represented a rise of over 8.3% year-on-year, as mainland China contributed just over 18.22 million tourists. The figures furthermore show that the nine-month tally for overnight visitors had grown by 7.7% while same-day visits rose by an exceptional 9%.