March visitor arrivals to Macau rose 271.4 percent year-on-year, and 22.8 percent month-on-month, according to data issued on Monday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.

March’s tally was just below 1.96 million, split almost equally between overnight visitors and same-day visitors.

The result took the first-quarter aggregate to nearly 4.95 million, an increase of 163.7 percent year-on-year. That figure had been flagged earlier this month by the Macao Government Tourism Office.

In March, the average length of stay of visitors stayed at 1.2 days. The duration of stay for overnight visitors was 2.2 days, down by 1.4 days year-on-year. The average for same-day visitors was 0.3 of a day, up by 0.2 of a day.

The March tally from mainland China grew by 164.9 percent year-on-year, to 1.24 million, i.e., 63.5 percent of March’s total. A further 31.8 percent, or 622,304, of the March visitors were from Hong Kong.

Among the mainland cohort, 720,052 entered Macau on Individual Visit Scheme visas. A total of 45.3 percent of mainland visitors – or 563,083 – were drawn from nine cities in Guangdong province that help make up the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.