Macau visitor numbers take first steps to recovery in July but still down 98% year-on-year

Macau’s visitor numbers began to show some early signs of recovery in July, rising 228.1% compared with June to 74,006. The increase, from just 22,556 visitors in June, came after authorities lifted the mandatory 14-day quarantine measures on all people entering Guangdong Province from Macau on 15 July.

Nevertheless, July’s figures – released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) on Thursday – still represented a decline of almost 98% from the 3.5 million who entered Macau in July 2019.

The vast majority of visitors, 66,489 to be precise, arrived from mainland China with 6,240 from Hong Kong and 1,271 from Taiwan.

For the first seven months of 2020, visitor arrivals are down 86.0% to 3,342,906, comprising 1,773,428 same-day visitors and 1,569,478 overnight visitors.

Visitors from mainland China (2,406,078), Hong Kong (658,762) and Taiwan (82,899) all recorded decreases of more than 80%, DSEC said.

Visitor numbers are expected to continue growing in the coming months after the Individual Visit Scheme was reinstated for Zhuhai residents from 12 August. IVS will expand to the rest of Guangdong Province on 26 August and all of mainland China on 23 September.