Changes in Macau visa policies could?hurt the gambling industry; however, Macau announced a record 1.14 million individual visitors. These were individual visitors from the Chinese mainland. The record was set in February 2015 and shows an increase of 38.9 percent, which is a year on year percentage increase according to the Statistics and Census Service in Macau.
According to the bureau it was a 4.5 percent increase for the month when paired against the prior year. Further details show that the visitors entered Macau under the Individual Visit Scheme, at least 60% of them did. Macau has also announced that they are working with the government to improve IVS in hopes for better tourism in the future. Before implementing the IVS, Mainland tourists were mostly required to be part of a tour group to visit ?Macau or Hong Kong.