Macau’s average hotel occupancy rate reached 50.4 percent in the first six months of 2021, up by 23.2 percentage points when compared to the prior-year period, stated the city’s Statistics and Census Service in a Thursday press release.
A total of 3,378,000 guest check-ins were completed at Macau’s hotels and guest houses from January to June, the official data indicated. The average length of stay of guests for the first half of 2021 stood at 1.8 nights, up by 0.1 night year-on-year.
The statistics bureau said that data on hotels and guest houses used for Macau’s compulsory medical observation scheme linked to Covid-19 countermeasures, were excluded from its occupancy figures.
Macau’s average occupancy rate for hotels and guest houses for June reached 45.3 percent, versus 62.1 percent in the previous month. Macau hotels and guest houses had recorded in May the highest average hotel occupancy rate since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in January 2020, following sequential growth in March and April.
According to the Statistics and Census Service, the sequential decline in June was related to “reinforced pandemic prevention and control measures in Guangdong province and Macau in early June.”
Fresh cases of Covid-19 infection in Guangdong were reported in late May and early June, resulting in tighter travel restrictions between Macau and the neighbouring mainland province. These were gradually eased between the second half of June and early July.
According to preliminary data disclosed by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) on July 19, Macau’s average hotel occupancy rate reached 52.1 percent in the first 15 days of July. The tourism body said at the time the hotel occupancy improvement showed that a recovery in the city’s travel trade was in “progress”.
MGTO director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes estimated earlier this month that the city’s average hotel occupancy rate might be in the range of “70 percent to 80 percent” for the summer months of July and August, a traditional time for family trips.
Her estimate was prior to a recent rise in the number of local Covid-19 infection cases reported on the mainland. The situation led Macau authorities to add a number of locations spread across several Chinese provinces to the list of places where departing travellers must do a 14-day quarantine on arrival in Macau.
Mainland China is the only place to have a largely quarantine-free travel bubble with Macau, amid existing travel restrictions as countermeasures against Covid-19.
Most casino properties in Macau are housed inside hotel complexes. According to several investment analysts coverging the city’s gaming industry, the majority of gamblers at Macau’s gaming floors are tourists.
