Visitors to Macau spent an aggregate of MOP15.20 billion (US$1.89 billion), excluding gaming expenses, in the third quarter of 2019, down 17.2 percent year-on-year, according to the latest visitor expenditure survey released on Tuesday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
Per capita spending of visitors during the period stood at MOP1,532, a decline of 24.9 percent in year-on-year terms.
Market-wide casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Macau for the third quarter declined by 4.1 percent in year-on-year terms, according to official data released in October by the city’s gaming regulator. The GGR figure includes both spending by locals and visitors; according to investment analysts covering the Macau casino sector, the large majority of gamblers in Macau are visitors.
Macau saw 9.92 million visitors in the three months to September 30, up by 10.2 percent year-on-year, show official data. The headline visitor numbers to Macau however need not be positively correlated to overall gaming demand, as GGR in the Macau market has been typically skewed to high-end play.
Overnight visitors to Macau spent around four times as much on aggregate during the third quarter than same-day tourists, the city’s Statistics and Census Service said on Tuesday. According to the official data, overnight visitors to Macau spent an aggregate of MOP12.19 billion in the reporting period, down by 20.0 percent in year-on-year terms. Their per-capita spending stood at MOP2,545, 19.1 percent less than a year ago.
Aggregate spending by same-day visitors declined by 3.2 percent year-on-year to MOP3.01 billion, said the statistics bureau. The per-capita spending of same-day visitors stood at MOP587, down 21.6 percent from the third quarter 2018.
Shopping remained the largest-single category for Macau visitor non-gaming spend in the third quarter, accounting for 45.2 percent of total outlay. Spending on accommodation and on food and drink completed the top three categories, accounting for respectively 26.9 percent and 20.5 percent of the overall spending during the quarter.
