Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes announced today (21 January) that the total of visitor arrivals surpassed 31.5 million with a surge of 7.5% in Macau last year. Entering 2015, MGTO will focus on five key work goals in line with the SAR Government’s strategic positioning to build Macau into a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure.
MGTO held the Annual Press Conference at Macau Tower Convention and Entertainment Centre today (21 January) to deliver a retrospective summary of last year’s tourism development followed by the Director’s presentation of MGTO’s objectives and strategies in 2015. Nearly 500 guests attended the conference including MGTO’s overseas representatives and local industry partners as well as nearly 90 members of the press from Macau, Hong Kong, Mainland China and overseas. The media attendees also include international journalists based in Macau and Hong Kong.
MGTO revealed that last year’s visitor arrivals topped 31.5 million in Macau and increased by 7.5% year-on-year according to preliminary statistics. Visitors from the Greater China region surpassed 28 million with a rise of 8.5%, whereas the international visitor number dropped slightly by 1.1%. Nonetheless, the numbers of overnight-stay visitors and hotel overnight guests both saw a growth in 2014. The overnight-stay visitor number was up by 2.1% throughout the year while the total of hotel overnight guests showed an increase of 0.4%.
The Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan continue to rank as the top three tourist markets for Macau. Macau received over 21 million Mainland visitors with a year-on-year growth of 14.1% last year. 42% of them came from Guangdong Province. In terms of international visitors, the yearly total of Korean visitors exceeded 550 thousand and surged remarkably by 16.9%.
MGTO expressed that over 14.5 million visitors stayed overnight in Macau last year, constituting 46.2% of total visitor arrivals with an increase of 2.1%. Local hotels hosted more than 10 million overnight guests in total last year, which account for 73% of overnight-stay visitors in Macau with an increase of 0.4%. Overnight-stay visitor’ average length of stay throughout last year stood at 1.9 days, same as 2013. The visitor expenditure between last January and September totaled US$39.7 billion, a period-on-period growth of 0.7%.
