Macau visitor arrivals down 98.8% in July

Macau registered just 9,759 visitor arrivals in July.

Macau.- The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) has reported that 9,759 tourists arrived in Macau in July. The figure was down 97.4 per cent month-on-month and 98.8 per cent year-on-year.

The numbers were severely impacted by the latest outbreak of Covid-19 cases in Macau, which started on June 19 and took more than a month for the authorities to bring under control. Casinos were shut for two weeks. Authorities also tightened travel rules with neighbouring Zhuhai in the Chinese mainland’s Guangdong province.

For the first seven months of 2022, visitor arrivals were down by 26.3 per cent year-over-year to 3,474,866. The tally of same-day visitors, at 2,188,015, and overnight visitors, at 1,286,851, fell by 2.6 per cent and 47.9 per cent respectively.

In July, Macau’s gross gaming revenue was down 83.9 per cent month-on-month from MOP2.48bn to MOP398m (US$49.2m). The figure was down 95.3 per cent when compared to July 2021 and was the lowest since 2003, when city authorities began publishing monthly figures. Macau’s GGR for the first seven months of 2022 combined stands at MOP26.6bn (US$3.29bn), down 53.6 per cent year-on-year.

Analysts at Citibank have forecast that Macau’s GGR for August could rise 376 per cent month-over-month to MOP 1.5bn (US$185.7m). That figure would be one-third of what was recorded in August 2021.

Citibank noted that mainland tourists will remain cautious when deciding whether to consider Macau as a destination, even though Macau has resumed its quarantine-free entry policy with Zhuhai since early August.