Macau received more than 670 thousand tourists during the Christmas period

Macau received nearly 679,600 tourists during the Christmas season from the Chinese region’s birthday on December 20 to Tuesday, ten times more than the same period in 2022, official data released this Wednesday showed.

The city received about 93,000 visitors on Tuesday, bringing the seven-day total to 679,584, according to the Public Security Police (PSP) of China’s Special Administrative Region.

This figure is more than ten times higher than the figure recorded at Christmas 2022 (65,138), when both Macau and mainland China – the main market for tourists visiting the city – were still imposing travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic .

The peak was felt on Saturday, a day when Macau received 133,603 visitors, with the city averaging about 97,000 tourists daily during this period.

During the so-called golden week of China Day, October 1, one of the country’s tourism peaks, the city received an average of 116,546 tourists per day.

This is despite the fact that neither the Winter Solstice (December 22) nor Christmas are public holidays in mainland China. Only in the neighboring region of Hong Kong, Macau’s second largest source of visitors, are December 25 and 26 public holidays.

Data released by PSP does not indicate the origin of tourists, but reports that almost two thirds entered either through Portas do Cerco (33.2%), the main border with mainland China, or the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (29. 8%).

In fact, the 55.5-kilometer bridge, which opened in October 2018, carried more than 16,000 vehicles through the terminal in Zhuhai, a Chinese city adjacent to Macau, on Monday, setting a new record, state news outlet China reported. Media Group.

Almost 25.3 million visitors arrived in the Chinese region from January to November this year, nearly five times more than the same period last year, according to official data released last week.

Economy and Finance Minister Lei Wai Nong said on December 10 that he expects Macau to end the year with 28 million tourists, which would be five times more than in 2022 and about 71% of the figure recorded in 2019 (39 6 million) before the pandemic.

Macau, which like China has a “zero coronavirus” policy, announced in mid-December 2022 that it would gradually lift most prevention and containment measures after nearly three years of strict restrictions.

On January 8, the territory reopened its borders to all foreigners, including tourists.