Visitors on package tours to Macau down in Feb

Thursday 31st of March 2016

Macau SAR saw a drastic drop in visitors arriving through package tours in February, according to recent data from the Macau Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

Around 569,900 visitors arrived in the gambling hub on package tours, down 34 percent year on year. Of this number, 438,000 came from mainland China, a decrease of 36.7 percent year on year.

Visitors arriving on package tours from Korea (34,000) and Taiwan (40,000) dropped 18.8 percent and 24.2 percent respectively.

The first two months of 2016 saw visitors arriving on package tours down 33.2 percent to 1.14 million.

Macau welcomed over 2.64 million visitors in February, a 1.2 percent decline from the same period in 2014, according to the Macau Statistics and Census Service.

According to official data, the number of visitors from mainland China fell 5.2 percent to 1.8 million, which was slightly offset by an increase of visitors from Hong Kong which went up 4.8 percent to 548,080, as well as Taiwan, which rose 16.6 percent to 86,477.

Bernstein said “the larger tourism arrivals in Macau reflect favorably on Macau's focus to diversify its economy and develop itself into a destination market,” and “would also bode well for Macau gaming’s paradigm shift that is increasingly driven by Mass over the long run.”

Chinese Visitors Tourists Package tour