MACAO - Macao's visitor arrivals in September increased by 2.4 percent year-on-year, but down by 13.3 percent month-to-month, with overnight visitors rising by 5.4 percent, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistics department said on Monday.

Data issued from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals totaled 2.49 million in September. Due to the ending of summer travel rush, the total arrivals in September decreased by 13.3 percent compared with the figure in August.

Overnight visitors increased to 1.38 million by 5.4 percent year-on-year, while same-day visitors (1.11 million) decreased by 1.0 percent. The average length of stay of visitors (1.3 days) held steady year-on-year, with that of overnight visitors and same-day visitors remaining unchanged at 2.2 days and 0.2 day respectively.

Visitors from the Chinese mainland increased by 9.2 percent year-on-year to 1.72 million in September, mainly from Guangdong, Hunan and Fujian provinces. Visitors from South Korea (60,940) recorded a 10.6 percent growth, while those from Hong Kong SAR (451,307) and China's Taiwan region (86,183) went down by 14.3 percent and 5.8 percent respectively. Long-haul visitors from the United States, Australia, Canada and Britain all registered decreases.

DSEC data also showed that in the first three quarters of 2017, visitor arrivals totaled 23.84 million, up by 4.2 percent year-on-year. Overnight visitors (12.64 million) rose by 10.8 percent while same-day visitors (11.20 million) dropped by 2.3 percent. The average length of stay of visitors (1.2 days) held stable year-on-year, with that of overnight visitors (2.1 days) falling by 0.1 day and that of same-day visitors staying at 0.2 day.

In the first three quarters of 2017, visitors from the Chinese mainland (16.09 million) and South Korea (644,109) increased by 6.3 percent and 34.9 percent respectively year-on-year.