{"id":23000,"date":"2021-09-27T12:29:02","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T15:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=23000"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:19:15","slug":"macau-october-golden-week-at-risk-amid-local-covid-19-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-october-golden-week-at-risk-amid-local-covid-19-cases","title":{"rendered":"Macau October Golden Week at risk amid local Covid-19 cases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>An outbreak of two local Covid-19 cases has endangered Macau&#8217;s expectations for the October Golden Week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.- The government of Macau has reported two local Covid-19 cases over the weekend, and analysts believe this could lead to a cancellation of the highly expected\u00a0<strong>October Golden Week<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A week ago,\u00a0<strong>Andy Wu, president of the Travel Industry Council of Macau,\u00a0<\/strong>had predicted the city could receive\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/expectations-rise-for-october-golden-week-in-macau\">40,000 daily visitors<\/a>\u00a0during the holiday period. Macao Government Tourism Office director\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/expectations-rise-for-october-golden-week\">Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes<\/a><strong>\u00a0had predicted 35,000 visitors a day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, <strong>analysts at JP Morgan Securities<\/strong> now\u00a0believe expectations for the national holiday could be deeply affected by new countermeasures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They said: &#8220;While there\u2019s still a possibility that travel restrictions could be lifted before\/during Golden Week,\u00a0<strong>we think it\u2019s a foregone conclusion that it will be an ungolden holiday<\/strong>, as many players are likely to cancel the trips to avoid risks of being quarantined upon their return to mainland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Current countermeasures are similar to those&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-on-alert-after-a-community-outbreak-of-covid-19\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the government imposed in August<\/a>&nbsp;after the city reported local Covid-19 cases. At the time, Macau carried out&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-mass-testing-ends-with-no-new-covid-19-cases\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mass testing for Covid-19<\/a>, in which&nbsp;<strong>716,251 people were tested<\/strong>, all of them returning negative results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authorities have suspended the<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-announces-return-of-stay-dine-and-see-initiative\">\u201cStay, Dine and See Macao\u201d initiative<\/a>\u00a0that let Macau residents book government-subsidised staycations at hotels and guest houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bookings cancelled during the weekend<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Andy Wu Keng Kuong, Macau Travel Industry Council president<\/strong>, has revealed that people have already started to cancel reservations for the October Golden Week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keng Kuong told GGRAsia: &#8220;The initial expectation for the October Golden Week was that the Cotai casino resorts might see an average occupancy rate at 80 per cent to 90 per cent.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;But<strong>&nbsp;that rate now might stand at just 50 per cent to 60 per cent<\/strong>, as many cancellations of bookings had happened throughout the weekend following Macau\u2019s news of the new Covid-19 infection cases.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mainland China continues to be the only country to have a&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/covid-19-vaccine-passports-could-speed-up-macau-tourism-recovery\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">largely quarantine-free travel bubble<\/a>&nbsp;with Macau.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An outbreak of two local Covid-19 cases has endangered Macau&#8217;s expectations for the October Golden Week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":18018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Macau's October Golden Week tourism outlook has been significantly downgraded following two local Covid-19 cases, prompting analysts to predict a material reduction in visitor arrivals and casino resort occupancy. Initial projections for high daily visitor numbers and 80-90% Cotai occupancy are now revised downwards to 35,000-40,000 daily visitors and 50-60% occupancy, as travel restrictions and quarantine concerns deter mainland Chinese visitors. This development is expected to materially impact the region's gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the period.","focusai_entities":"Andy Wu, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, JP Morgan Securities, Andy Wu Keng Kuong, GGRAsia, Travel Industry Council of Macau, Macao Government Tourism Office","focusai_location":"Macau, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.75), operator_casino (0.95), marketing_crm (0.7), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"GGR Impact Analysis","query":"What is the projected GGR impact for Macau's gaming operators during the October Golden Week, considering the revised visitor and occupancy forecasts?"},{"label":"Operator Contingency Plans","query":"How are major Macau concessionaires adjusting their operational strategies and cost structures in response to the anticipated downturn in Golden Week visitation?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338],"tags":[23906],"class_list":["post-23000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","tag-macau-casinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23000","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=23000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23022,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23000\/revisions\/23022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}