Macau’s daily average visitor arrivals from December 23 to 27 inclusive – referred to by the local tourism authority as “Christmas” season – showed a double-digit percentage increase sequentially, and was better in real-numbers terms than the whole of November’s performance versus October, and better than the whole of October’s performance versus September.
Average hotel occupancy during the Christmas festive period also reached a fourth-quarter high of nearly 70 percent, according to official data published on Tuesday.
A daily average of 24,503 visitor arrivals to the city was recorded for the Christmas break during December 23 to 27, of which 93 percent were from mainland China, according to data published by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO). This visitor arrival tally represented an increase of 20.2 percent compared to the daily average visitor arrivals (i.e. 20,385) recorded during the preceding 22 days of December, MGTO said.
The daily average tally of visitor arrivals for the Christmas period also marks a 15.5 percent increase when compared to that of November (i.e. 21,212), and a 30.5 percent increase when compared to October (i.e.18,774), according to MGTO’s Tuesday data.
The Christmas break visitor arrival trend could be attributed to the “stable” conditions regarding Covid-19 in mainland China and Macau, and the impact of MGTO’s own travel campaigns targeted at mainland tourists as well as what it called the “festive effect” of the Christmas break, according to the office’s Tuesday update.
For mainland China, however, Christmas period is not traditionally classified as any holiday on its official holiday calendar. But Macau’s current travel bubble partner is only mainland China.
The average hotel occupancy rate of Macau’s hotels – including guesthouses – reached 69.4 percent for December 23 to 27. The average hotel occupancy rate of Macau’s three-star to five-star hotels was 70 percent during that period, according to MGTO’s data.
The highest average hotel occupancy rate recorded during the Christmas break was from the city’s three-star hotels, at 78.4 percent. The average nightly rate these three-star hotels charged during the holiday period was MOP605.50 (US$75.80), according to MGTO’s data.
The city’s five-star hotels saw an average occupancy rate at 70.4 percent for the period December 23 to 27, while that for four-star hotels was 70 percent. The average nightly rate at five-star hotels was MOP1,226.10, while that for four-star hotels was MOP624.10.
Several casino resort properties in Macau are housed inside hotel complexes with five-star accommodation.
The average nightly rate that these hotels charged during the Christmas holiday represented a 2.5 percent increase when compared to November, but a 10.1 percent decline when compared to October, according to MGTO’s data. A major Chinese holiday break encompasses National Day on October 1.
As of November, Macau had 120 hotels and guesthouses in operation, with an aggregate of 35,100 rooms, according to a separate set of data published by Statistics and Census Service on Tuesday.
During that month, the average hotel occupancy of Macau’s hotel rooms and guesthouses was 43.9 percent, and that of the five-star hotels stood at 41.5 percent.
