Macau saw an increase in tourism during the Ching Ming Festival holiday from April 4th to 6th, with visitor arrivals reaching 409,000 over the three days, according to data from the Macau Security Police Force.
This marks a 14.7 percent increase compared to the same period last year, with a daily average of 136,000 visitors.
On Friday, April 4th, visitor numbers peaked at over 173,000, leading authorities to implement crowd control measures near the Ruins of St. Paul’s on both Friday and Saturday afternoon.
Mainland Chinese visitors comprised the majority of arrivals, accounting for 73.7 percent, with 301,000 visitors. Hong Kong residents formed the second-largest group at 17.6 percent (72,000 visitors), while visitors from Taiwan represented 2 percent (8,000) and international tourists made up 6.7 percent (27,000) of the total.
The three-day holiday period coincided with mainland China’s Ching Ming Festival holiday and extended weekends in Hong Kong and Macau, resulting in high border crossing activity.
Officials recorded 2.01 million border crossings during this period, with daily averages of 671,000 crossings. This represents a 10.8 percent increase from the same period last year, when 1.81 million crossings were recorded.
The Border Gate (Gongbei Port) was the most utilized checkpoint, handling 1.01 million crossings and accounting for 50.2 percent of all crossings. The Qingmao Port processed 311,000 crossings (15.5 percent), the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge checkpoint recorded 273,000 crossings (13.6 percent), and the Hengqin checkpoint processed 260,000 crossings (12.9 percent).
The Ching Ming holiday period is not typically one that typically draws large tourists to Macau, and caught some retailers and tourism-related business owners by surprise.
