Macau had 46,900 hotel rooms in operation as of June-end, up 9.1-percent year-on-year, and circa 21.2 percent higher than in the same period in the pre-pandemic trading year 2019, according to data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
Circa 60 percent – or just over 28,000 guest rooms – were in the five-star tier. The inventory in that category expanded 9.2 percent year-on-year, and was nearly 16 percent up on second-quarter 2019, the data show.
Many of the five-star hotels in operation in the Macau market are housed inside casino resort complexes.
The average occupancy rate across all types of guest room in the first half of this year stood at 84.0 percent, with five-star occupancy 85.8 percent.
In first-half 2023, the average nightly utilisation in that category had been 77.7 percent. Five-star establishment occupancy in first-half 2019 had been 92.4 percent.
New casino-resort hotel space since April 2023 includes Palazzo Versace Macau, part of SJM Holdings Ltd’s Cotai venue Grand Lisboa Palace.
Also in April last year, Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd opened Epic Tower, part of Studio City’s Phase 2: to start with, for existing clients. That resort’s W Macau hotel launched in September last year.
Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd opened in August 2023 – initially just for established customers – its all-suite Raffles at Galaxy Macau hotel at the group’s flagship Cotai property Galaxy Macau. The following month – also as part of Galaxy Macau Phase 3 – the gaming operator opened its Andaz Macau hotel.
As of June-end this year, two-star accommodation saw the fastest year-on-year growth, according to the statistics service.
Macau had 2,000 two-star hotel guest rooms as of June-end, 27.1-percent up on a year ago. Macau’s three-star, two-star and budget inn segments combined, accounted for circa 20 percent of the city’s 46,900 operating guest rooms at the end of the second quarter.
In the first half this year, nearly 7.28 million stays were recorded for the city’s hotel rooms and inns. Out of that tally, nearly 5.31 million involved people from mainland China, a 21.9 percent year-on-year rise. The second-largest guest market was Hong Kong, which accounted for 962,300 stays, though the number represented a 12.6 percent decline year-on-year.
Outside Greater China, South Korea has been the most important feeder market for Macau’s hotels in the first half. A total of 148,900 stays in Macau hotels and inns involved people from that country: up 270.6-percent year-on-year.
Package tour visitors to Macau totalled nearly 1.08 million in the first six months of 2024, a 146.1–percent increase from the prior-year period, the latest data set from the census service also shows. However, the package tour visitor tally for the January to June period only recovered to circa 22 percent of the equivalent period in 2019.
