Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) held its annual press conference last month to deliver a retrospective summary of last year’s tourism developments followed by Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes’ presentation of MGTO’s objectives and strategies for 2015. She revealed that last year's visitor arrivals topped 31.5 million in Macau and increased by 7.5 per cent year-on-year according to preliminary statistics. Visitors from the Greater China region surpassed 28 million, posting an increase of 8.5 per cent. Macau welcomed over 21 million Mainland visitors with a year-on-year growth of 14.1 per cent last year, 42 per cent of these visitors originating from Guangdong Province. In terms of international visitors, the yearly total of Korean visitors exceeded 550,000 to reflect a remarkable surge of 16.9per cent, whilst international visitor numbers as a whole dipped a slight 1.1 per cent.

MGTO revealed that over 14.5 million visitors stayed overnight in Macau last year, comprising 46.2 per cent of total visitor arrivals with an increase of 2.1 per cent. Local hotels hosted more than 10 million overnight guests last year, who accounted for 73 per cent of overnight-stay visitors in Macau with an increase of 0.4 per cent. Overnight-stay visitors’ average length of stay throughout last year stood at 1.9 days, as it did in 2013. Visitor expenditure from last January to September totalled some US$39.7 billion, a period-on-period growth of 0.7 per cent.

With regard to the hotel industry, the average occupancy rate of hotels in Macau in 2014 was 86.5 per cent, up 3.4 per cent year-on-year. The average room rate of 3 to 5-star hotels was US$199.9, up 8.6 per cent. Over 12 million visitors came to Macau on group tours last year, a year-on-year growth of 26 per cent.

MGTO’s Tourist Information counters handled or received over 1.15 million visitor enquiries, material requests and suggestions last year. Concerning measures against illegal accommodation, the interdepartmental task force inspected over 1,200 apartments, sealing 153 of them throughout the year; MGTO initiated sanction procedures against 68 providers of accommodation, 13 touts and two dwellers who did not comply with the duty of co-operation.

Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes indicated that in order to fulfil Macau’s strategic positioning as a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure, MGTO would continue to develop Macau tourism in the direction of this strategic positioning, identifying five focal points this year: 1. Promote tourism planning and study, whilst conducting research on specific tourism topics; 2. Strive for service quality enhancement, whilst strengthening industry supervision and training; 3. Launch new tourism products, and organize festive events; 4. Organize a series of promotional activities to enhance Macau’s diverse tourism image; 5. Actively participate in international organizations, whilst strengthening regional co-operation and development.

For the MGTO Director’s full presentation, please visit:
http://industry.macautourism.gov.mo/en/page/content.php?page_id=200