Macao's visitor arrivals in January surged by 18.6 percent year-on-year to 2,461,640 due to the Lunar New Year holidays, according to figures released Thursday by the city's Statistics and Census Service ( DSEC).

Of all the arrivals in January, 55.7 percent spent only one day. The average length of stay of visitors decreased by 0.2 day year- on-year to 0.9 day, the figures indicated.

Analyzed by place of residence, visitors from the Chinese mainland increased by 22.5 percent year-on-year to 1.49 million, 60.7 percent of the total, of which 711,475 traveled to Macao under the Individual Visit Scheme.

Visitors from Hong Kong (638,032) and South Korea (46,176) increased by 20.5 percent and 9.6 percent respectively, while those from Taiwan (85,546) and Japan (31,669) decreased by 7.1 percent and 12.4 percent respectively.

Analyzed by mode of transport, the majority of visitors arrived by land, an increase of 14.7 percent year-on-year to 1,360,648, which was followed by visitor arrivals by sea (960,822) and by air (140,170), up by 25 percent and 15.6 percent respectively.