Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals decreased by 6.5% year-on-year to 2,146,542 in May 2012; same-day visitors (1,109,995) accounted for 51.7% of the total. The average length of stay of visitors decreased by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.0 day, with overnight visitors and same-day visitors staying 1.8 days and 0.2 day respectively.

Analyzed by place of residence, visitors from Mainland China decreased by 4.2% year-on-year to 1,271,540, coming mostly from Guangdong Province (616,540), Fujian Province (58,585), Hunan Province (48,807) and Zhejiang Province (48,607). Mainland visitors travelling to Macao under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) fell by 0.9% to 526,279. At the same time, visitors from Hong Kong (540,435); Taiwan, China (78,834); and the Republic of Korea (31,292) decreased by 11.8%, 23.2% and 2.1% respectively, while Japanese visitors (33,655) increased by 17.6%. Besides, long-haul visitors from the Americas (26,783), Europe (19,515) and Oceania (9,417) also recorded year-on-year increase of 5.7%, 3.2% and 0.5% respectively.

In the first five months of 2012, visitor arrivals increased by 3.7% year-on-year to 11,471,018. Visitors from Mainland China (6,890,366), the Republic of Korea (184,993) and Japan (171,519) increased by 9.8%, 12.6% and 12.5% respectively; long-haul visitors also registered year-on-year increase. However, visitors from Hong Kong (2,915,451) and Taiwan, China (414,366) decreased by 6.0% and 15.2% respectively.