The director of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, says visitor number to Macau could reach 38 million in 2025 – just about bringing visitation back to 2019 levels.
Fernandes mentioned the figures in an interview with local media on Friday, adding that visitor arrivals this year would be much higher than last year, benefiting from the mainland government’s new measures of “one-trip-per-week limit” and “multiple-entry endorsement”.
“The provisional estimate for this year, if the situation is optimistic, is that the annual visitor arrivals are expected to reach 38 to 39 million, which will be very close to the figure for 2019,” she said.
Macau recorded more than 39.4 million visitor arrivals in 2019, up about 10% from 35.8 million in 2018. Mainland visitors accounted for the majority of these, with about 28 million arrivals.
Fernandes added that MGTO will have a wide range of online and offline promotional activities this year, as well as promotional campaigns targeting the Middle East and European countries. In addition, five large-scale international roadshows, in Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, are planned and are expected to be completed in the first half of the year.
Chinese New Year, whose Golden Week runs from 28 January to 4 February, looms as Macau’s first litmus test with Fernandes expecting an average of 185,000 visitors per day.
