Macao received 528.519 visitors in June, down 39% compared to May, and up 2 243 % year-on-year, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) revealed in a press release.
The drop in the number of visitors compared to May was due to increased prevention measures against the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of June in China’s Guangdong province and the territory, following hundreds of cases in the province.
Last month, Macao welcomed 313.441 day-trippers and 215.078 tourists, a monthly decrease of 20.1% and 54.6% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors was 1.2 days, down 0.2 days year-on-year, DSEC said.
The number of visitors from inland China was 471.935, up 2 140 % year-on-year. Among the nine cities in the Greater Bay of the Pearl River Delta, the territory received 246.673 visitors, 70% from the neighboring city of Zhuhai. From Hong Kong, there came 52.296 visitors and from Taiwan 4,213, the entity added.
In the first half of this year, Macao received 3.927.829 visitors, up 20.2% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of visitors (2.058.657) and day-trippers (1.869.172) rose 33.2% and 8.5%, respectively. Macao, whose economy relies heavily on tourism, welcomed nearly 40 million visitors in 2019.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the territory has recorded only 55 cases of the disease, no deaths. Despite the situation being under control, the region has been losing visitors. Even after a timid recovery in the first few months of this year, Macao is still far from pre-pandemic numbers, and this has a major economic impact on the territory.