MGTO lowers expectations for October Golden Week

MGTO director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes now has conservative expectations and doesn’t anticipate a surge in visitors.

Macau.- The outlook in Macau for China’s upcoming national holidays isn’t rosy. Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has confirmed that Macau can no longer expect a big surge in tourism during the October golden week, which runs from October 1 to 7.

According to public broadcaster TDM’s Chinese-language radio service, Fernandes has noted that mainland authorities are concerned about the spread of Covid-19 domestically and as such visitor numbers are unlikely to surge.

She said the MGTO had suspended offline tourism promotion in mainland China as a result. The MGTO had organised a series of roadshows across the mainland to promote Macau. However, Fernandez said promotion efforts would now be focused on online channels for the time being.

Earlier this month, China’s National Health Commission urged mainland residents to avoid long-distance travel during the upcoming national day holiday to avoid the risk of spreading Covid-19.

Macau visitor arrivals up 3.2% in August

The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) has reported that 331,397 tourists arrived in Macau in August. The figure was up 3.2 per cent month-on-month but down 19.0 per cent when compared to the previous year.

According to the DSEC, overnight visitors increased by 17.5 per cent year-on-year to 177,640, while same-day visitors fell by 40.4 per cent to 153,757. There were 290,138 tourists from mainland China, a year-on-year decrease of 21.5 per cent, of which 124,255 were individual tourists.

For the first eight months of 2022, visitor arrivals were down by 25.8 per cent year-over-year to 3,806,263. The tally of same-day visitors, at 2,341,772, and overnight visitors, at 1,464,491, fell by 6.5 per cent and 44.2 per cent respectively.