Tourism in Macau: MGTO now expects over 100,000 visitors a day for October Golden Week
As of last week, five-star hotels nearly fully booked.
Macau.- Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, the director of Macau’s Government Tourism Office (MGTO), said that the city may see an average of over 100,000 visitors a day this October Golden Week if weather conditions remain favourable. The holiday period will take place from October 1 to 7.
Fernandes said hotel occupancy rates for the holiday period were around 70 per cent last week, with five-star hotels nearly fully booked. “Speaking from past experiences, hotel bookings go ‘mad’ in the week just before the Golden Week,” she said.
A recent analysis from Morgan Stanley Asia suggests that Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR) could reach MOP900m (US$112.1m) during the Golden Week and MOP20bn (US$2.4bn) for October as a whole. The latter would be an increase of 1 per cent in year-on-year terms.
Analysts at Seaport Research Partners have suggested that October GGR could hit MOP21.5bn (US$2.68bn), a rise of 10 per cent in year-on-year terms and 28 per cent sequentially. Analyst Vitaly Umansky based his estimates on a Golden Week GGR of MOP950m, up 4 per cent compared to May Golden Week and up 25 per cent compared to the Chinese New Year holiday period.
See also: Macau casinos: gaming taxes reach US$7.33bn in first 8 months of the year
Visitor arrivals up 13% in August
The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) has reported that 3,651,731 people visited Macau in August. The figure was up 13 per cent in year-on-year terms and up 20.9 per cent when compared to the previous month. It was up 0.8 per cent compared to the pre-pandemic figure from 2019.
Same-day visitors (2.04 million) rose by 23.4 per cent year-on-year and overnight visitors (1.61 million) by 2.7 per cent. The average length of stay shortened by 0.1 days in year-on-year terms to 1.1 days, with that of overnight visitors rising by 0.1 days to 2.3 days.
Mainland Chinese tourists accounted for the majority of arrivals at 92,752,322. That’s a rise of 18.5 per cent year-on-year. When compared to 2019 levels, the figure was up 4 per cent. Visitors from Hong Kong reached 663,449, over 99 per cent of 2019 levels but down 6.8 per cent year-on-year.
International visitor arrivals reached 162,331, over 74 per cent of 2019 levels. In year-on-year terms, the figure was up 25.5 per cent. South Korea made up the biggest share, followed by the Philippines.
