Macau’s Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) has reported a 20.2% year-on-year increase in visitor arrivals in the first half of 2021 to 3,927,829 as the SAR continues its slow but steady recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The figures include a 33.2% rise in overnight visitors to 2,058,657 and an 8.5% improvement in same-day visitors to 1,869,172, pushing the average length of stay up from 1.4 days to 1.6 days.
It could have been better, too, if not for a slowdown in June as border restrictions with Guangdong Province were temporarily tightened due to an outbreak in Guangzhou and Foshan.
The number of visitors entering Macau in June fell 39.0% to 528,519, considerably higher than the 22,556 arrivals at the height of the pandemic in June 2020 but below the 866,063 in May 2021. It was also well below the 3.1 million arrivals in June 2019.
Same-day visitors in June 2021 fell 20.1% compared with May to 313,441 and overnight visitors by 54.6% to 215,078, pushing the average length of stay down from 1.4 days to 1.2 days.
As always, mainland China comprised the vast majority of arrivals with 471,935, of which 120,604 arrived via the Individual Visit Scheme. There were 52,296 visitors from Hong Kong and 4,213 from Taiwan.
By mode of arrival, 449,776 entered by land including 395,028 via the Border Gate. Visitor arrivals by air and by sea totalled 69,390 and 9,353 respectively.
