Back on the rise

The total number of visitors to the MSAR reached 2.48 million in the month of September, representing a 2.4 per cent increase year-on-year, according to the latest data released by the Statistics and Census Services (DSEC).
The results come after visitation in the month prior was affected by the passage of Typhoon Hato on August 23, with the number of visitors seeing a 0.6 yearly decrease to 2.86 million in that month.
The first nine months of this year saw a cumulative 23.83 million visitor arrivals, an increase of 4.2 per cent year-on-year from the same period last year.
Visitor numbers from mainland China reached 1.72 million in August, indicating a 9.2 per cent yearly rise, with the number of visitors from the Mainland going up by 6.3 per cent year-on-year to 16.08 million between January and September.
Visitors from mainland China represented 67.5 per cent of the total visitor numbers in the first nine months of this year, followed by Hong Kong with 19.5 per cent and Taiwan with 3.3 per cent.
However, the first three quarters of this year saw the second and third largest sources of visitors to Macau – Hong Kong and Taiwan – both register year-on-year decreases, with Hong Kong declining by almost 3 per cent, to 4.65 million, and Taiwan by 1 per cent to around 802,200.
South Korea registered the largest increase in visitor numbers to the MSAR in the first nine months of this year, with a near-35 per cent year-on-year jump from last year, reaching about 644,100.
The number of visitors that chose to stay overnight in Macau during the first nine months of this year increased by 10.8 per cent year-on-year, to reach 12.63 million, while the number of same-day visitors went down by 2.3 per cent yearly to 11.19 million.
Visitor entries by land represented 57.2 per cent of total entries in the first three quarters of the year, having increased 3 per cent year-on-year to 13.64 million.
Meanwhile, entries by sea increased by 4.6 per cent yearly to reach 8.19 million between January and September of this year, with entries by air going up 11.4 per cent year-on-year to 1.99 million.