Changes in Macau’s visa policy may hurt the gambling industry, but Macau has announced a record 1.14 million individual visitors. These are individual visitors from mainland China. The record was set in February 2015 and shows an increase of 38.9% year-over-year, according to the Macau Statistics and Census Bureau.
Compared to the previous year, it was up 4.5% in the month, according to the Secretariat. Additional details show that at least 60% of visitors entered Macau on individual visit plans. Macau also announced that it is working with the government to improve IVS in hopes of better tourism in the future. Before implementing IVS, most mainland tourists had to be part of a tour group to visit Macau or Hong Kong.