Macau’s average occupancy rate for hotels and guest houses for December reached 53.1 percent, the highest level since January 2020, when it stood at 79.4 percent according to Macua government data, before the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.
December did however have fewer hotel rooms in operation – a total of 35,100, versus about 39,000 in January 2020. The difference was due to factors including that some establishments this December were being used for medical quarantine of people seeking to enter Macau.
The December average occupancy level was a 9.2-percentage point improvement on November, although a 38.9-percentage point decline judged against December 2019, according to the latest data released by Macau’s Statistics and Census Service.
Of the city’s operating rooms in December, 21,700 were in five-star hotels, 11.7 percent fewer than the same month in 2019, the official data show. Most of the city’s casinos are located inside resorts with five-star hotels, although not all five-star hotels have associated gaming operations.
The census service noted that hotels used for the Macau government’s quarantine programme were excluded from its compilation of hotel occupancy data.
At the start of 2020, data from the Macau Hotel Association showed that January 2020 average occupancy for the city’s three- to five-star hotels stood at 78.5 percent, which was nonetheless down by 14.5 percent year-on-year.
The local government’s latest data showed that this December, the average occupancy of Macau’s five-star hotel rooms was 51.9 percent, a decline by 41.4 percentage points year-on-year.
The average occupancy of the city’s four-star and three-star hotel rooms during the month was 56.8 percent and 63.4 percent, respectively, with both tiers of hotel showing more than 30 percentage points year-on-year decline in occupancy.
A total of 578,800 guest check-ins were completed at Macau’s hotels and guest houses in December, the official data indicate. Check-ins involving guests from mainland China, totalled 492,100, a decline of 40 percent year-on-year. People living in Macau were the second-largest source of hotel room guests during December, representing 60,600 check-ins– a 15.7-percent year-on-year increase.
For full-year 2020, the city’s average occupancy rate for hotels and guest houses was 28.6 percent, a decline by 62.2 percentage points year-on-year. The average length of stay of guests for the full year stood at 1.7 nights, up by 0.2 night year-on-year.
