Macau exceeds 30 million visitors, but mainland market stagnates

Macau welcomed more visitors last year, despite the fact that arrivals from mainland China remained almost flat.

According to the full-year data from the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), the city’s total of 30.95 million visitors marked a 0.8% increase compared to 2015. The vast majority of these visitors are from neighbouring mainland China, accounting for approximately two thirds of the total, or in excess of 20m visitors.

And almost half of these visitors were cross-border arrivals from Guangdong province. But the total of mainland arrivals increased just 0.2% year-on-year, and arrivals from neighbouring Hong Kong declined 1.8%.

Instead, Macau’s growth was driven by Taiwan and other regional Asian markets. Arrivals from Taiwan jumped 8.8% in 2016, and strong growth was seen from Thailand (+30%), South Korea (+20%) and Japan (+6.5%).

Overall, non-Chinese arrivals (excluding mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) increased 8%.
Overnight-stay visitors increased 9.8% to 15.7m in 2016, accounting for more than half of the city’s total arrivals. But despite this, the average length-of-stay in Macau remains only 1.2 days.