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HomeNewsMacauMacau receives 16.7M visitors in 1H24, 83 percent of pre-COVID levels

Macau receives 16.7M visitors in 1H24, 83 percent of pre-COVID levels

According to data from the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), Macau welcomed approximately 16.73 million visitors from January to June 2024.

This averages nearly 91,918 visitors per day, marking a 43.6 percent increase compared to the same period in 2023 and a recovery to 82.5 percent of the visitor levels seen in the first half of 2019.

This rebound is largely attributed to beneficial policies implemented by the central government. Several measures have been introduced this year to support Macau’s tourism sector. These include increasing the duty-free allowance for residents entering Macau, allowing mainland package tour visitors to make multiple visits between Hengqin and Macau within seven days, and adding 10 new mainland cities to the list of those under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) to come to Hong Kong and Macau.

The MGTO notes that the bureau has been actively coordinating these initiatives, leveraging the central government’s support to further boost tourism development.

In the same press release, the MGTO reveals that international tourists have shown a significant rise in numbers, with nearly 1.17 million visiting Macau in the first half of the year, up 146.4 percent year-on-year. This figure represents 67.2 percent of the international visitor numbers from 2019. 

Macau Visitor Arrivals 2024
Visitor Arrivals JAN-MAY 2024: MGTO

Additionally, data indicates that from January to May, 928,000 tourists arrived in Macau as part of tour groups, marking a 230 percent increase from the previous year. International tour group visitors surged 14-fold to 88,000. The MGTO believes that these results highlight the ‘continued appeal of group travel’.

The hotel industry in Macau also experienced significant growth. From January to May 2024, the average hotel occupancy rate was 84.3 percent, up 7.7 percentage points from the same period in 2023, though still 7.2 percentage points below the 91.5 percent rate recorded in 2019. 

The number of hotel guests showed a more substantial recovery, with 6.1 million guests recorded in the first five months of 2024, representing a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2023 and a 6 percent rise compared to 2019.

Viviana Chan
Viviana Chanhttps://agbrief.com/
Viviana Chan is an editor, interpreter, and journalist. With over a decade of experience, she writes in English, Chinese, and Portuguese. Viviana started her career in Macau-based newspapers, where she became passionate about the region's social, financial, and cultural development. Her writing focuses on the economy, emerging industries, gaming development, political affairs, and cross cultural-exchange in the business and cultural domains. She is avid for news and eager to discover and cover stories that generate public relevance.

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