{"id":2035,"date":"2020-01-07T12:45:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T12:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=2035"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:11:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:11:33","slug":"macau-gaming-pneumonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-gaming-pneumonia","title":{"rendered":"Macau gaming could start slow due to pneumonia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A pneumonia outbreak has hit Wuhan, central China, putting the Macau gaming industry on alert for a potentially slow start to the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.- The Chinese territory of Macau had a tough 2019 and 2020 looks set for a slow start, too. According to the authorities, a viral pneumonia outbreak could endanger the city, even though it is hundreds of kilometres away from where the outbreak has occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The outbreak was reported in the metropolis of Wuhan, in central mainland China. However, Macau has direct air services to and from the region, which may hurt the gaming industry as the threat of an epidemic continues to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Worst of all, the World Health Organisation has yet to identify the cause of the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNo evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported,\u201d the WHO has stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Macau Health Bureau has asked casinos to install body temperature-screening equipment at their properties. However, there\u2019s no further news on which venues have complied with the request to prevent the outbreak from expanding further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Macau gaming in 2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>2019 wasn\u2019t the best year for the largest Asian gaming hub. According to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), Macau GGR dropped 3.4% last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The body showed full-year GGR in the territory reached \u20ac32.7 billion, less than 2018\u2019s figures. The result follows a major 13.7% year-on-year drop in December which was attributed to Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s visit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Fitch Ratings\u2019 assessment<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Fitch Ratings<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0has changed its rating for Macau and\u00a0<strong><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/fitch-macau-rating-casinos\" target=\"_blank\">downgraded<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0it from \u201cStable\u201d to \u201cNegative\u201d. The agency said that the downgrade is due an increased exposure to mainland China.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A pneumonia outbreak has hit Wuhan, central China, putting the Macau gaming industry on alert for a potentially slow start to the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"A pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China, is raising concerns for Macau's gaming industry, which already experienced a 3.4% GGR drop in 2019. Fitch Ratings has downgraded Macau's outlook to \"Negative\" due to increased exposure to mainland China, signaling a challenging start to 2020 for the region's casino operators.","focusai_entities":"World Health Organisation, Macau Health Bureau, Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, Fitch Ratings, Xi Jinping","focusai_location":"Wuhan, China, Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.8), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (1.0), marketing_crm (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"GGR Forecast Impact?","query":"What is the projected impact of the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak and the Fitch downgrade on Macau's Q1 2020 Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) and full-year forecasts?"},{"label":"Operator Mitigation Strategies?","query":"What specific operational and financial mitigation strategies are Macau's integrated resort operators implementing to counter reduced visitation and potential revenue shortfalls?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,28,16333],"tags":[96,512,257,5335],"class_list":["post-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-casino-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-asia","tag-gaming","tag-macau","tag-pneumonia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777009471,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions\/777009471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}