Macau Overtakes Hong Kong’s Visitors Intake

Written on May 10, 2008 by admin

In the first quarter of the year Macau received 230,788 more visitors than Hong Kong, according to official figures from the Hong Kong tourist office obtained by Portuguese news agency Lusa.

According to the same figures, between January and March 2008, Macau received 7,506,309 visitors as compared with 7,275,521 visitors to Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong tourist market grew by 10 percent in the first quarter of this year whilst in Macau it grew by 17.9 percent.

In March alone, whilst Macau received 2,713,457 visitors,, Hong Kong registered 2,404,499.

Despite having overtaken Hong Knog in the number of visitors, the Macau tourist market is more dependent on the Chinese mainland than Hong Kong’s as, according to official figures from both territories, Macau received 4.38 million mainland Chinese visitors, whilst Hong Kong received 4.15 million.

Around 2 million visitors (a rise 3.28 percent) to Macau in the first quarter were from Hong Kong, whilst just 153,904 people travelled in the opposite direction (a rise of 8.8 percent).

The Macau tourism market grew 22.8 percent in 2007 to 27 million people as compared with growth of 11.6 percent for Hong Kong and a total of 28.17 million visitors.

Macau covers an area of 29 square kilometres and has a population of an estimated 538,000 people as compared with the over 1,000 square kilometres of Hong Kong and a population of 7 million.