The director of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, expressed her hope that the city could receive 100,000 tourists daily during the upcoming Chinese festivals Ching Ming and Easter, both holiday seasons in Macau and Hong Kong.
These holidays are important for Macau, as mainland China, its biggest tourist market, also observes Ching Ming. Currently, the city receives 70,000 to 80,000 non-holiday visitors daily. Ms. Senna Fernandes aims to increase this number to 100,000.
The Ching Ming festival is a time for Chinese people worldwide to pay respect to their ancestors. This year, the festival will be observed from April 4 to April 6 in mainland China, whereas in Hong Kong, it will only be celebrated on April 4. The Easter season in Hong Kong, which also follows the lunar calendar, will run from March 29 (Good Friday) to April 1 (Easter Monday) this year.
Macau's tourism industry expects visitor traffic to be lower during these festivals than during the Chinese New Year holiday. During the Chinese New Year break from February 10 to February 17 this year, Macau received almost 1.36 million visitors, averaging close to 170,000 a day.
Dragon Trail International, a marketing and research agency focusing on mainland consumers, stated in a recent travel-sector review that outbound trips by that segment might only surpass pre-pandemic levels of 2019 by 2025. This year, the volume of such trips might reach around 80 percent of the 2019 levels.
According to figures from China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during this year's Chinese New Year, 3.60 million outbound trips were made by mainlanders, which is 57 percent of 2019's 6.31 million outbound trips.
Dragon Trail International also pointed out that the mainland's five-day holiday surrounding Labor Day on May 1 would be an important time for Macau’s tourism. This would be followed by the summer season and the Autumn Golden Week, which encompasses China's National Day on October 1.