Macau’s Lunar New Year holiday continues to surprise with more than 90,000 visitors arriving on Tuesday – once again smashing the single day record for arrivals since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
Day 4 of Golden Week saw 90,391 arrivals, continuing a strong upward trend that saw the modest 32,554 arrivals on Saturday rise to 50,041 on Sunday and 71,678 on Monday.
That brings the total number of visitors for the first four days of Golden Week to 244,644 at a daily average of 61,166 per day.
By comparison, there were just 113,699 arrivals throughout the entire seven-day Golden Week period last year at an average of 16,242 per day. In 2019, pre-COVID, a record 1.21 million people came to Macau for Lunar New Year at 173,000 per day.
Arrivals from mainland China this Golden Week have so far tallied 137,749, up 161% on 2022, while Hong Kong arrivals are almost 3,000% higher at 91,931.
The surge in arrivals following three years of border closures and quarantine requirements comes after the government lifted all border restrictions on mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan visitors from 8 January, while foreigners are required only to provide a negative COVID-19 test result.
The Macao Government Tourism Office responded shortly after by suggesting visitor arrivals during Golden Week might reach 50,000 per day but Monday’s tally has already smashed those estimates.
Analysts have also revised their GGR estimates for the March 2023 quarter upwards, with investment bank JP Morgan describing its earlier forecasts post-opening as “a bit too conservative.”
