Macau: first day of Labour Day holiday sees promising visitor numbers

The city received 176,921 visitors on the first day of the holiday period.

Macau.- The Public Security Police has reported that 121,750 visitors arrived in Macau on the first day of the Labour Day Golden Week, which will run until Monday (May 5). That’s an increase of 45.31 per cent in year-on-year terms.

According to the police, about half of the tourists (83,843) came into the city through the Border Gate checkpoint, while 15 per cent (26,997) arrived via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.

Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, the director of Macau’s Government Tourism Office (MGTO) previously said the city may see an average of 127,000 to 140,000 visitors a day this Labour Day holiday. She expects between 635,000 and 700,000 arrivals over the whole holiday period.

A figure of 635,000 would represent an increase of almost 5 per cent in year-on-year terms. Fernandes’ highest estimate would be a 15.7 per cent increase. In 2024, 604,395 visitors arrived in Macau during the Labour Day golden week. That represented 84 per cent of what was recorded during the holiday in 2019.

Macau visitor numbers rise in Q1

In the first quarter of the year, 9,862,665 people visited Macau. That’s an increase of 11.1 per cent in year-on-year terms. Same-day visitors (5,823,384) rose by 21.5 per cent year-on-year, and overnight visitors (4,039,281) dropped by 1.1 per cent. The average length of stay decreased by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.1 days.

Mainland Chinese tourists accounted for 7,206,035 arrivals, a rise of 14.5 per cent year-on-year. Those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (4,011,208) rose by 15.6 per cent. Some 381,172 visited Macau under the “one trip per week measure” while 97,957 travelled under the “multiple-entry measure”. Mainland visitors travelling under the “tourist group multi-entry measure” totalled 28,671.

Visitors from the Taiwan region reached 221,146, up 21.6 per cent year-on-year, while the number of tourists from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1,753,042) decreased by 3.6 per cent. International visitor arrivals reached 682,442, up 16.9 per cent.