Easter proved to be a popular holiday for visits to Macau, with a 39.3% year-on-year increase taking the number of visitors to just under 556,200 during the four-day holiday.
The overall entry and exit figures, which include local residents, non-resident workers and non-local students as well as tourism visitors, recorded 2.46 million border crossings overall.
Some 68%, 1,685,405, used the Border Gate, while the second most popular was the new Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) checkpoint which saw 275,342 entries and exits, followed by 144,954 at the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal, and just over 112,000 via Macau International Airport.
According to the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) the capacity Macau has for tourism is 40 million annual arrivals, or 110,000 tourists per day, before possible negative impacts on the natural and cultural environment.
Last year’s tally of 35.8 million visitors was up 10% on 2017, and already 2019 is looking set to break records – and possibly the IFT’s capacity recommendations.
Mainland China and Hong Kong remain the top two markets, with South Korea and Taiwan showing steady growth.
According to the Statistics and Census Service visitors from the Greater Bay Area were up as much as 16.6% this March year-on-year, thanks partly to the HZMB.