Tourists travelling to Macau up 5.6% in the first quarter

rding to data released by the city’s Statistics and Census Service, Macau saw a 5.6% year-on-year increase in the number of visitors in the first quarter of 2017 to nearly 7.9m.

The number of visitors from mainland China amounted to 5.3 million, an increase of 7.6%. Whilst South Korea saw an increase of 32% to 229,600 and Taiwan attracted 255,000, up 1.9% year-on-year.

However, visitors from Hong Kong decreased by 2.5% to 1.5 million.

The government has continually campaigned to develop the city as a "World Centre of Tourism and Leisure". Nonetheless, the latest data reveals that Macau is still seemed somewhat of a Chinese tourist 'playground'.

Figures show that the visitors remained in the region for an average of 1.2 days which is identical to the figures seen in the same month in the prior year.

Generally whilst the number of visitors attracted to Macau from Asia is on the rise, the number of arrivals from Australia, the UK and France all fell year-on-year in the first quarter.