Macau recorded 757,251 visitor arrivals in the first four days of the mainland’s five-day Labour Day holiday, an increase of 42.3 percent from last year’s corresponding period, according to data released by the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) on its website yesterday.
This year’s Labour Day holiday in the mainland started on Thursday last week and ended yesterday.
Last year’s Labour Day holiday also lasted five days.
In the first four days, between Thursday and Sunday, of this year’s five-day Labour Day holiday, according to the MGTO data released yesterday, the number of visitor arrivals from the mainland increased 40.1 percent year on year to 618,104, while 90,472 visitor arrivals from Hong Kong were recorded during the four days, up 49.2 percent from last year’s corresponding period.
According to the MGTO data, Macau recorded 176,873 visitor arrivals on the first day of this year’s Labour Day holiday, 221,926 on the second day, 204,041 on the third day, and 154,411 on the fourth day, up 45.4 percent, 47.2 percent, 32.6 percent, and 45.6 percent year on year respectively.
In terms of single-day numbers, the nearly 222,000 visitor arrivals recorded on the second day of the mainland’s Labour Day holiday this year exceeded the previous post-pandemic record of some 219,000 visitor arrivals, which were recorded on the fourth day of the mainland’s Spring Festival Golden Week holiday this year, i.e., the third day of the Year of the Snake.
Macau’s highest single-day number of visitor arrivals was recorded on the third day of the Year of the Pig in pre-pandemic 2019, at some 226,000.
Meanwhile, Macau recorded some 837,000 entries and exits at its border checkpoints on Friday, the second day of the mainland’s Labour Day holiday this year, breaking the previous highest single-day number of some 803,000 recorded on January 18 this year, according to data released by the Public Security Police (PSP).
The police implemented special crowd control measures in streets and alleys around the UNESCO World Heritage-protected Ruins of St Paul’s in the afternoon of the first four days of the five-day holiday period, to tackle the large crowds of visitors heading to the landmark.
Moreover, a vehicular lane in the section between the Rua Central junction and the Municipal Affairs Bureau’s (IAM) headquarters on Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, the city’s main thoroughfare, commonly known as San Ma Lou in Cantonese, was temporarily closed to vehicular traffic and used for pedestrians for about three hours on Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the temporary pedestrianisation of Taipa Village was implemented during this year’s five-day Labour Day holiday in the mainland, which ended yesterday, in anticipation of a relatively large number of tourists visiting the area.
The temporary pedestrianisation of Taipa Village, which was implemented between noon and 7 p.m. from Thursday last week to yesterday, was the first time it was implemented for the mainland’s Labour Day holiday period.
According to local media reports yesterday, businesses as well as community associations in the neighbourhood in general acknowledged the positive results in the government’s implementation of the temporary pedestrianisation of Taipa Village for the Labour Day holiday.
A woman poses for a photo in front of the Ruins of St Paul’s landmark yesterday, one of Macau’s most popular tourist attractions. – Photo: Tony Wong
Tourists throng the temporarily pedestrianised Taipa Village on Sunday.
