Macau reportedly chalked up an 18.7% increase year-on-year in visitor numbers last month as some 3.4 million people travelled to enjoy the former Portuguese enclave’s extensive selection of shops, hotels and casinos.

Year’s biggest rise:

According to a report from GGRAsia citing official information from the city’s Statistics and Census Service, the August tally represented the largest 2018 rise since July when the monthly tourist number improved by 4% year-on-year to reach slightly in excess of 3 million.

China maintains prominent position:

The official figures showed that the number of August visitors to Macau from mainland China had swelled by 25.3% year-on-year to hit just over 2.5 million with the majority of these having journeyed the relatively short distance from the nearby provinces of Guangdong and Hunan. As such, the 31-day tally for those who had travelled to the city using the giant nation’s Individual Visit Scheme exit permit system purportedly rose by 31% to approximately 1.3 million.

The Statistics and Census Service observed that August saw Macau post a 5% boost year-on-year in the number of tourists that had arrived from Hong Kong to 556,372 while the figure for those from Taiwan advanced by 1.7% to 94,123. The city of some 651,000 people purportedly recorded comparably better numbers last month in terms of those who had visited from the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom although the South Korea tally was 12.6% lower at 66,052.

Overnight visitation climbs:

The August numbers furthermore indicated that Macau had posted a 16.3% increase year-on-year in terms of those who had stayed overnight to nearly 1.8 million while the same-day visitation number swelled by 21.6% to 1.6 million. However, the official figures showed that the average length of stay had dropped by just over 7.6% to stand at 1.2 days.

Eight-month tally improves:

GGRAsia reported that the August figure means that Macau had attracted some 23.25 million tourists since the start of 2018, which represented a rise of about 8.9% year-on-year. It detailed that this eight-month period moreover saw mainland China remain as the city’s biggest source of tourists with its 16.4 million tally signifying a 14.2% boost.

Market’s most lucrative 2018 month:

All of this helped Macau to record August aggregated gross gaming revenues of $3.29 billion, which represented a rise of some 17.1% year-on-year and made the month the city’s most lucrative in 2018.