This year’s October Golden Week in China will be an eight-day holiday, and the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) expects the average number of visitors each day during that time to reach 100,000.
Although usually a seven-day break, this year sees the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day Holiday coincide, with the mainland to enjoy eight consecutive days of official holidays.
In an interview with TDM, MGTO Deputy Director Hoi Io Meng said MGTO is well prepared for the full eight days of Golden Week.
“We hope that in terms of visitor arrivals we can resume a daily average of 100,000 during Golden Week, and MGTO will do a good job in preparing for that,” he said.
“There were 17.64 million visitors to Macau from January to August this year, and the daily average in August was about 100,000 visitors.”
However, Hoi noted that visitor arrivals in September are tracking at around 70,000 per day due to Super Typhoon Saola and ongoing bad weather.
As for the possibility of a significant increase in hotel room rates during Golden Week, Hoi said he had communicated with the hotel industry about the situation.
“We hope the industry will pay attention to the fact that there should not be greater fluctuations in room rates, and in particular, they should pay attention to online booking platforms,” he said.
“We have asked the hotel industry to pay attention to the online booking platforms that are connected to the industry, and to pay attention to the issue of room rates.”
Meanwhile, the MGTO hosted representatives from 10 US and Canadian travel agencies at an exchange session on Thursday as part of a three-day trip.
“Currently, the United States ranks seventh among Macau’s top 10 source markets,” the agency said. “MGTO is committed to expanding its international visitor sources. Over the past three years, MGTO has still maintained Macau’s popularity in North America through participation in local offline promotional activities and continuous publicity on various social media platforms.”
