Macau tourist up 22% year-on-year in May

Macau's visitor numbers in May rose 21.6% year-on-year to just over 2.69 million, the city's statistics bureau said in a release on Friday.

The tally stood at 79.3% of the same month in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Judging sequentially, the May figure was up 3.5% from just over 2.6 million in April.

May marked the labor holiday season in mainland China, Macau's main tourist supply market.

The city recorded a total of 604,395 visitors from May 1 to 5, during the break.

Macau's casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) rose 8.9% in April to nearly MOP 20.19 billion ($2.51 billion).

This was the best monthly performance since January 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the city's GGR hitting MOP 22.13 billion.

At the end of May this year, eight outsourced cities became active members of China's departure visa scheme, or IVS, for independent travelers seeking to visit Macau and Hong Kong.

The Office for National Statistics said the number of day visitors, or just over 1.43 million overnight visitors, or just over 1.26 million, rose 27.2% and 15.9%, respectively, over the same period a year earlier during May.

The average length of stay for visitors was stable at 1.2 days compared to the previous year. On the same day, the length of stay for visitors remained unchanged at 0.2 days per day, and the length of stay for night visitors was 2.3 days, an increase of 0.1 days per day.

The number of people arriving in May from mainland China rose 25.9% year-on-year to nearly 1.86 million, while those traveling under IVS rose 6.3%.

Hong Kong visitors fell 3.3% year-on-year to 582,083, while Taiwan visitors fell slightly to 68,971, but nonetheless increased 118.7% year-on-year.

The number of foreign visitors rose 74.4% year-on-year to 184,854 in May, up 61.3% from the same month in 2019.

Among Southeast Asian source markets, 14,512 products arrived from Indonesia, up 15.6% from the same month in 2019.

Figures for the Philippines (35,852) and Malaysia (15,094) returned to 73.8% and 80.2% in May 2019, respectively.

For India, the May arrival tally stood at 13,759, 65.7% of May 2019 levels.

BY: 바카라사이트