Macau’s visitor arrivals in October 2024 reached almost 3.14 million, showing a strong recovery, nearly reaching pre-pandemic levels.
According to the latest data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), Macau’s visitor numbers in October rose by 13.7 percent year-on-year to 3,135,358, recovering to 97.7 percent of the same month’s 2019 figure. This also marked a significant 24 percent month-on-month increase.
Mainland China remained the dominant source of visitors, with arrivals from there growing by 16.1 percent year-on-year to 2.3 million. Of these, around 1.1 million traveled under the Individual Visit Scheme, an increase of 6.8 percent compared to October 2023.
International visitor arrivals experienced significant growth, rising 31.2 percent year-on-year to 212,284, reaching 98.8 percent of the figure recorded in October 2019. Southeast Asian markets performed strongly, with visitor numbers from the Philippines increasing by 30.3 percent to 38,924, Malaysia growing by 47.1 percent to 15,926, and Indonesia edging up by 0.3 percent to 13,625. However, Thailand saw a decline, with arrivals dropping 14.5 percent to 12,036.
In the South Asian market, visitors from India rose by 29 percent to 8,148. Northeast Asia also contributed to the overall growth, as arrivals from South Korea surged by 83.5 percent to 47,069, while Japan recorded a 23.5 percent increase to 9,594. From the long-haul markets, visitor numbers from the United States grew by 20.8 percent to 13,022.
In the first ten months of 2024, the total number of visitors reached over 29 million, a 28.1 percent year-on-year increase, recovering to 87 percent of the pre-pandemic levels seen in the same period of 2019.
International visitors for this period surged by 85 percent, totaling 1.9 million, which is 73.1 percent of the number recorded during the first ten months of 2019.
Earlier this week, Macau’s Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng projected that the city is on track to welcome 34 million visitors by the end of 2024.
