Macau visitor arrival rate increases by 10% on national holiday day

The number of visitors to Macau during the Chinese National Day increased by 10% year-on-year.

Macau welcomed about 137,000 visitors on Wednesday, according to preliminary figures from the Macau Public Security Police. About 105,000 visitors came from mainland China, up 2.3 percent year-on-year.

The preliminary entry figures also include migrant workers and others living in Macau under various visa agreements.

A 10 percent increase in visitor arrivals is a good start to the National Day Golden Week holiday. This holiday is the peak season for Macau's tourism industry, as hundreds of thousands of mainland Chinese tourists usually visit the country on a week-long vacation.

However, there is no direct link between total tourist arrivals in Macau and casino game gross sales (GGR). Although monthly GGRs have been declining year-on-year since June, total tourist numbers have continued to rise, reaching a new monthly record high of around 3.1 million in August, official data showed. Visitors to mainland China encouraged the increase.

Macau's government said last week it expected visitors to the national holiday golden holiday to rise by about 8% year-on-year.

From Oct. 1 to Oct. 7 last year, 897,000 people visited Macau during the Golden Week holiday. This figure is a 5.7 percent increase from 2012. According to media reports, Macau's casinos generated $12 billion (W1.5 billion) in sales during the week-on-year holiday in October 2013, a 36 percent increase from the same period last year.

It is unclear whether Hong Kong's "occupation of the central" movement will affect the arrival of Macau tourists. Several media outlets reported on Wednesday that Beijing authorities had suspended visits by tour groups from mainland China to Hong Kong as thousands of people continued to blockade the centre of Hong Kong's financial hub, demanding full democratic elections in 2017. Many of these tour groups visit Hong Kong and Macau as part of the package. 파워볼사이트

On Tuesday, Credit Suisse AG analysts Kenneth Fong and Isis Wong noted that package tour visitors are typically less-spending players and are likely to have less contribution to Macau's entire casino GGR.

"Individual visitor planning There may be cases where visitors skip Hong Kong and stay in Macau for longer. That could offset some of the impact," they said.