Rise in Macau visitor numbers after Guangdong restrictions eased

The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has reported that arrivals increased “significantly” after authorities ended restrictions for visitors from Guangdong.

Macau.- The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes has reported that the number of visitor arrivals to Macau increased by several thousand last week.

Fernandes said she believes Macau may see an average nightly hotel occupancy rate of between 70 per cent to 80 per cent during the summer holiday months of July and August.

The MGTO hopes for an average daily rate of 30,000 visitors during the summer holidays.

For now, there is only one city in mainland China that remains on Macau’s quarantine list: Ruili, in southwest China’s Yunnan province bordering Myanmar.

Macau will also launch the “Stay, Dine and See Macao” initiative to let Macau residents book government-subsidised staycations at hotels and guest houses. It ran a similar initiative during the Labour Day break.

In June, the average hotel occupancy rate drop below 50 per cent, mainly due to the rise in Covid-19 cases in the Guangdong province. In May, the average room occupancy rate for five-star hotels in Macau had been 67.1 per cent.

Macau’s Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) also fell in June after months of improvement, registering a decline of 37 per cent to MOP$6.54bn ($817.3m), from MOP10.45bn (US$1.31bn) in May. 

However, the number represents an increase of 813 per cent from June 2020, when the city registered GGR of MOP$716m.