{"id":22553,"date":"2021-09-13T07:57:59","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T10:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=22553"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:45:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:45:51","slug":"macau-unlikely-to-ease-travel-limits-this-year-analysts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-unlikely-to-ease-travel-limits-this-year-analysts-say","title":{"rendered":"Macau unlikely to ease travel limits this year, analysts say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd has predicted that the removal of travel barriers to enter Macau won&#8217;t happen until 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.- According to analysts at\u00a0<strong>Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd<\/strong>, Macau is unlikely to remove its<strong>\u00a0travel restrictions <\/strong>for people coming from places beyond mainland China before 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, analysts predicted GGR will start to improve in the fourth quarter.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-posts-us31-2m-in-ggr-for-first-week-of-september\">GGR in September<\/a>\u00a0could reach about 30 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and 40 per cent in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They added: &#8220;Longer term, Individual Visit Scheme eVisa, group visa restart, and Hong Kong travel resumption will be necessary to drive gross gaming revenue (GGR) upwards.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-raises-expectations-for-october-golden-week\">The Macau Government Tourism Office<\/a>\u00a0(MGTO) has predicted\u00a0<strong>the city could receive 30,000 visitors per day<\/strong>\u00a0during the October Golden Week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Macau TDM,&nbsp;<strong>Andy Wu, president of the Travel Industry Council of Macau<\/strong>, said: \u201cThe number of tourists keeps rising, especially during weekends, after the validity period of the nucleic acid test is reverted to seven days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen it comes to the October 1 Golden Week,<strong>&nbsp;I hope we can exceed the record of 30,000 visitors per day&nbsp;<\/strong>during the May Day Golden Week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, the\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/visitation-to-macau-surpasses-20000-a-day\">number of visitors<\/a>\u00a0entering the city surpassed 20,000 a day on average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/hong-kong-to-ease-covid-19-restrictions-with-macau-and-guangdong\">Authorities in Hong Kong<\/a>&nbsp;have recently announced that&nbsp;<strong>Macau ID holders and Guangdong residents&nbsp;<\/strong>could travel to Hong Kong without compulsory quarantine on arrival from September 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hong Kong will run a campaign dubbed&nbsp;<strong>Come2HK<\/strong>. Visitors will need to show a negative Covid-19 test and undergo further testing during their stay in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Macau to revise 2021 GGR forecast<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lei Wai Nong<\/strong>, Macau\u2019s secretary for economy and finance has said that Macau is&nbsp;<strong>revising GGR forecasts for the year&nbsp;<\/strong>for the city\u2019s revised budget, which will be submitted to the Legislative Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The announcement was made after the city recorded&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-ggr-down-47-7-in-august\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GGR or MOP$4.44bn (US$554.5m) for August<\/a>, down 47.7 per cent month-on-month and the lowest monthly GGR figure since September 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Analysts at Fitch Ratings Inc&nbsp;<\/strong>have predicted&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-2021-ggr-will-be-down-65-from-pre-covid-levels\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Macau\u2019s GGR&nbsp;<\/a>will be down 65 per cent from 2019 levels, closing close to MOP102.4bn this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd has predicted that the removal of travel barriers to enter Macau won&#8217;t happen until 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Analysts predict Macau's GGR will begin to recover in Q4, reaching 30-40% of pre-pandemic levels, despite expectations that broader international travel restrictions will remain until 2022. The Macau government is revising its 2021 GGR forecast following a significant August decline, with Fitch Ratings projecting a 65% reduction from 2019 levels.","focusai_entities":"Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd, Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO), Andy Wu, Travel Industry Council of Macau, Macau TDM, Lei Wai Nong, Fitch Ratings Inc, Legislative Assembly","focusai_location":"Macau, China, Hong Kong, Guangdong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.75), operator_casino (0.98), marketing_crm (0.85), investor_analyst (0.98), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on 2022 GGR?","query":"Given the delayed removal of international travel barriers until 2022, what is the revised GGR forecast for Macau in 2022, and what specific policy changes (e.g., eVisa, group visa) are critical for achieving it?"},{"label":"Operator Capital Expenditure?","query":"How will the protracted recovery timeline and revised GGR forecasts influence capital expenditure plans and investment strategies for major integrated resort operators in Macau over the next 12-24 months?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,156],"tags":[23907,23906],"class_list":["post-22553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-regulation-news","tag-land-based-casino","tag-macau-casinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22553","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22553"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22561,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22553\/revisions\/22561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}