Macau’s tourism industry felt the full effect of Typhoon Hato in August, with visitor numbers falling 0.6% year-on-year despite a promising start to the month according to information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
August arrivals totaled 2,866,400 due to a 6.2% decrease in same day arrivals – impacted heavily by a travel warning issued by Macau’s government and the cancellation of tour groups for six days after Hato struck on 23 August. Overnight visitors (1,547,781) increased by 4.8% to 1.55 million with the average length of stay rising 0.1 days year-on-year to 1.3 days.
Visitors from Mainland China increased by 1.9% year-on-year to 2.02 million in August, with those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme dropping slightly by 0.4% to just over a million. Visitors from Hong Kong (529,676) and Taiwan (92,580) decreased by 10.5% and 1.9% respectively year-on-year, while those from the Republic of Korea (75,548) grew by 30.8%.
Arrivals by land (1,653,800) went down by 1.1% year-on-year, with those arriving through the Border Gate (1,413,462) decreasing by 2.3%. Visitor arrivals by sea (965,955) also dropped by 2.8% year-on-year with those disembarking at the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal (595,359) and the Taipa Ferry Terminal (370,596) down 0.2% and 6.6% respectively.
Visitor arrivals by air (246,645) grew by 13.5% year-on-year.
For the first eight months of 2017, visitor arrivals totaled 21.35 million, up 4.4% year-on-year. Overnight visitors (11,254,702) rose 11.5% while same-day visitors (10,093,954) dropped by 2.4%. The average length of stay of visitors (1.2 days) held stable year-on-year, with that of overnight visitors (2.1 days) falling by 0.1 day and that of same-day visitors remaining at 0.2 day.
Visitors from Mainland China and Korea increased by 5.9% and 38.1% respectively year-on-year, while those from Hong Kong (4,204,683) and Taiwan (716,055) decreased by 1.5% and 0.2% respectively.
