MACAU, CHINA. Showing more encouraging signs of tourism recovery, Macau received 4.96 million visitors in the first three months of 2023, reaching about 45% of pre-pandemic 2019 levels. That’s according to the latest data from the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
The first-quarter figure, however, almost hit total visitor numbers in 2022 (around 5,700,000).
The data revealed that 1.51 million of visitors during this period were from Hong Kong, a nearly tenfold increase from the previous year. MGTO said that the improvement was a result of the ‘Macao Treat’ tourism campaign it launched in the first quarter of 2023. It offered buy-one-get-one-free return tickets for Hong Kong residents who purchased Hong Kong – Macao shuttle bus and ferry tickets.
Meanwhile, the three-day Easter holiday period saw more than 263,000 visitors entering Macau. The figure accounts for almost 60% of the number registered during the same holiday period in 2019.
Citing information from the Public Security Police, Macau Business reported that 85,875 tourists travelled to the casino gaming hub through various border checkpoints on Sunday, while more than 93,250 inbound visitors were registered on Saturday, and 83,918 on Friday. ✈
