Hong Kong’s tourist market is nearing pre-pandemic levels. All others, including inland China, are below 60 per cent of the volume recorded in the first half of 2019. Foreign markets combined do not reach 30 per cent and the recovery of the Brazilian and Portuguese markets are among the weakest
The post-pandemic is exceeding expectations in terms of the number of visitors entering Macau. The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) expects 60,000 daily visitors in the coming months. A sign of stability, according to the director of the service, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes. If this forecast is met, Macau will have 9,780,000 more visitors by the end of the year, or a result of 21,425,877 visitors – just over a million above the result obtained in the first half of 2019.
It would therefore be 54 per cent of the number of visitors in 2019, when Macao received 39,406,181 people. At the end of the first half of the year, Macao SAR has recovered 57 per cent from the pre-pandemic period.
Foreign markets
In total, foreign markets (outside Greater China) are at 27.3 per cent of pre-pandemic figures. Some 474,509 visitors of foreign nationality entered Macao in the first six months of the year. In 2019, at this time, Macau had already received 1,739,669 people (1,265,160 more).
The Portuguese market is below average, with a recovery of only 26 per cent. Between January and June this year, 2,080 visitors with Portuguese passports entered in Macau, while in the same period in 2019, 7,795 entered. 2,012 visitors arrived from Brazil, while in 2019 there were 6,628 – market recovery is 30.3 per cent. Portugal is, in fact, the 9th market with the worst recovery, while Brazil is in 11th place in a ranking with 26 countries.
Asian market
The Asian market, considered by many as the easiest foreign market to leverage the internationalisation of local tourism, is at 27 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. While almost 1.36 million visitors from Asian countries had entered in the first six months of 2019, only 361,805 people have entered so far in 2023 (997 thousand less). The low percentage is mostly due to the large drops observed in the markets of Japan and South Korea.
GCS
Exceptions to the rule
Hong Kong is the only exception to the rule. Macao has already recovered 93.4 per cent of visitors from the neighbouring special administrative region in the first half of the year. Apart from Hong Kong, only three other markets are above 50 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. These are Mainland China (52.7%), the Philippines (50.8%) and Indonesia (57.8%).
New top 5
In the first six months of 2019, the top five tourist markets in Macao were Mainland China (14,314,457), Hong Kong (3,694,910), Taiwan (535,597), South Korea (450,140) and the Philippines (224,989). This year the reality is different. Mainland China retains the top spot (7,544,179), with a smaller gap to Hong Kong (3,451,469), followed by Taiwan (175,720), the Philippines (114,282) and Indonesia (58,110). South Korea, which falls out of the top 5, is also the tourism market with the worst recovery in the first six months.
Markets with the worst recovery
Among the five tourist markets that Macau is having the most difficulty recovering are Australia (26%), Malaysia (25%), Switzerland (25%), Japan (12.7%) and, finally, the worst is even South Korea (10.3%).
Highlights:
Portugal and Brazil are the 9th and 11th worst recovering markets, respectively.
South Korea, which was once among the top five tourist markets in Macao, is the market with the worst recovery (10.3%).
