MACAU – Macau has enjoyed a tourism boom in the first 10 months of 2019, with suggestions that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) has played a significant role in the rise.
According to figures from the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), as of end-October 2019, Macau saw a 15.3% year-on-year increase in tourism arrivals to 33.4 million, reported Macau Daily Times.
The positive numbers are largely due to the 28% increase in day visitors to 17.66 million, and a 3.9% rise in overnight visitors to 15.74 million.
According to MGTO director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, who spoke to the newspaper on the side lines of the International Council for Small Business last week, the boom reflects the popularity of HZMB, which celebrated its first anniversary in October this year.
However, despite the healthy growth, Ms Senna Fernandes said the authorities are not expecting it to sustain into the new year.
“I believe that in November we will see, for the first time, a decrease in visitor arrivals,” she said, suggesting that the current growth was due to a one-off impact caused by the opening of HZMB.
Furthermore, she pointed to the ongoing social unrest in Hong Kong for a decrease in both the number of international visitors and tour groups from Mainland China – the largest source market for Macau tourism.
As such, the MGTO official remains cautious as to whether the city would meet the previously announced target of 40 million visitors in 2019, but said the total number would “surely” be greater than 2018.
Full-year visitor arrival data is usually disclosed by the government in late January.
Ms Senna Fernandes said, for the upcoming Christmas holiday, MGTO hopes there will be a large increase in visitor arrivals and that the hotel business will perform slightly better.
The organisation is also exploring the possibility of jointly developing tourism products with Zhuhai in future, a plan that Ms Senna Fernandes hopes will attract even more tourists.