Moderate growth in CNY visitors

The number of Mainland Chinese visitors coming here during the first three days of Chinese New Year increased by nearly 7 per cent year-on-year to 308,089 people, slowing from the 55.1 per cent rise seen in the equivalent period of the Chinese New Year holiday in 2014, official data reveals.
For the Golden Week vacation of the Year of the Goat, which started on February 19 this year, the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) said that the city registered a total number of 434,549 visitors that came here during the first three days of the vacation, representing a year-on-year increase of 3.4 per cent – a much moderated growth when compared to the 36.5 per cent (at 420,400 visitors) seen in the first three days of the Chinese New Year holiday last year, which started on January 31.
For the February 19 to February 21 period this year, Macau saw a total of 308,089 Mainland Chinese visitors, which grew by a year-on-year 6.9 per cent. While for the first three days of the Chinese New Year holiday in 2014, the city received a total of about 288,000 Mainlander visitors, which represented a staggering year-on-year growth of 55.1 per cent, according to official data. MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes anticipated that the number of overall visitors coming here during the 7-day Chinese New Year vacation this year would grow by more than 5 per cent. For the same period last year, Macau received a total of 1.05 million visitors (up by a year-on-year 13 per cent), in which over 770,000 were from Mainland China.
The latest data from MGTO published yesterday shows that from February 19 to 22, the city received up to 609,217 inbound visitors, of whom 443,421 people or 73 per cent were from the Mainland.