Tourists poured into Macau, yet gambling revenues didn’t improve
Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, mainland tourists visited Macau in large numbers, but casino revenues are still down.
Macau.- From February 7th to February 13th and during the Lunar New Year holiday, there were 793,598 visitor arrivals from mainland China, according to the Macau Government Tourist Office. This means the number of visitors raised by 4.3 percent over the same holiday period in 2015.
Even though this should have been great news for casino operators in the gambling hub, the average daily revenue at tables during the week dropped 20 percent to HK$790 million (US$101m) year on year, according to Nomura Holdings Inc. gaming analyst Richard Huang.
“The growing number of tourists, as well as high hotel occupancy rate don’t directly lead to the improvement of gambling revenue, as the visitation growth is mainly driven by tourists with weaker spending power,” Huang explained.
