Macau welcomes 2.75 million visitors in July, marking a 24.5% month-on-month increase

During July, Macau experienced a notable influx of visitors, with 2,759,544 arrivals recorded, showcasing a substantial rise of 24.5% compared to the preceding month.

As per data provided by the Statistics and Census Service, July’s visitor traffic is equivalent to 79% of what was recorded in the pre-COVID July of 2019, Macau Business reported.

Mainland China contributed the largest portion of tourist arrivals, with 1.9 million visitors. Over the initial seven months of this year, the total count of visitors to the Special Administrative Region (SAR) reached 14.4 million, still down from the 23.8 million recorded in the January to July period of 2019, the report said.

Meanwhile, Macau International Airport (MIA) witnessed a rise in its traffic volume during July, with over 551,000 passengers and 4,000 aircraft movements, reflecting a month-on-month increase of approximately 28% and 10% respectively.

As per an official note from MIA, the daily average number of inbound and outbound passengers reached 17,000 with 129 daily flight movements on average in July. Compared with the same period in 2019, the number of aircraft movements recovered by 58%, and the number of passengers recovered by about 60%.

The number of passengers on the Mainland of China routes and China Taiwan accounted for 53% and 18% of the total passenger volume respectively, while passengers on international routes accounted for the rest of 29%. It is expected that the passenger traffic and flight movements at MIA will continue to recover steadily during the summer vacation.

With the approach of the summer vacation, MIA is actively expanding more routes and increasing frequencies. Amongst them, Air Macau resumed regular services between Guiyang in August, and STARLUX Airlines also increased its flights between Taiwan and Macau in July and August to provide more options for travelers.

At the same time, MIA is actively cooperating with the tourism development direction of the Macau SAR Government, and strengthening the market development of medium and long-haul routes such as Indonesia, aiming to attract international tourists to Macau for tourism.

As for gaming, Macau casinos have seen an estimated MOP3.2 billion ($400 million) in gross gaming revenue (GGR) during the first 6 days of August, an average daily run rate of MOP533 million ($66.2 million), suggesting a flattish momentum compared to last month, as per investment bank JP Morgan.