Macau’s average hotel occupancy rate for the Christmas festive period running from December 23 (Saturday) to December 26 (Tuesday) was 90.8 percent, or 2.7 percentage points higher than November’s average of 88.1 percent, said the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) in a Wednesday update, citing preliminary travel-sector data.
Macau’s neighbouring special administrative region, Hong Kong, has Christmas Day (December 25) and the following day as public holidays. There are no public holidays in December on the Chinese mainland, Macau’s main source market for tourists.
Macau had an aggregate of 45,700 hotel rooms in operation as of October, according to the latest available data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
Macau had achieved a slight increase in visitor arrivals during December 23 to December 26, when compared with the same period in 2019, said MGTO in its latest update. The statement did not contain any breakdown on travellers’ respective market of origin.
In the four days cited, Macau saw “over 456,000” visitor arrivals, or a daily average of circa 114,000, a tally that marked an increase of 1.3 percent compared to the same period in 2019, MGTO said, broadly reiterating provisional data issued earlier by Macau’s Public Security Police.
Macau’s tourism office said it anticipated the “next peak” period in inbound travel to be the January 1 calendar new year break, and the Chinese New Year holiday.
Mainland China will observe January 1 (a Monday) and its preceding weekend as public holidays; and February 10 (a Saturday) to February 17 (also a Saturday), to mark the start of the Year of the Dragon, according to China’s State Council.
Hong Kong, ranked second as a tourism feeder market for Macau, will mark January 1 as a public holiday; and observe a Chinese New Year festive break from February 10 to February 13 inclusive.
