GGRAsia – Higher airfares offset some of Macau 2Q tourism price dip

Higher airfares offset some of Macau 2Q tourism price dip

Jul 13, 2020 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau’s tourist price index for the second quarter of 2020 dropped by 4.97 percent year-on-year, to 121.70 points, said the city’s Statistics and Census Service in a Monday announcement.

The decrease was “mainly attributable to lower hotel room rates and falling prices of clothing,” stated the local government.

Last week the Macau Hotel Association said that in May the average nightly cost of a Macau hotel room in the three- to five-star segment was MOP698.30 (US$87.48), a decline of 47.2 percent compared to MOP1,321.90 in the same month a year earlier.

The statistics bureau said, regarding second-quarter tourism prices, that the fall in hotel rates and clothing prices had been “offset” in part by “dearer prices of jewellery and higher airfares” for those air services that are available.

Last week Macau International Airport’s operator told GGRAsia the facility handled in June only five daily passenger flight movements on average – a year-on-year decline of 70 percent – due to the ongoing impact of travel restrictions related with efforts to stem the Covid-19 pandemic.

The city’s second-quarter tourist price indicator for “transport and communications” was up 11.14 percent year-on-year, compared to a fall of 19.37 percent for accommodation and a dip of 18.17 percent in the indicator for “clothing and footwear” prices. The indicator for “miscellaneous goods” was up 5.61 percent year-on-year in the second quarter.

Judged quarter-on-quarter, the overall tourist price index for the three months to June 30 declined by 10.83 percent.

Measured sequentially, the second-quarter indicator for accommodation fell by 41.49 percent, “on account of a substantial decrease in hotel room rates amid the epidemic,” said the statistics bureau.

Quarter-on-quarter, the price indicators for miscellaneous goods, and transport and communications, rose by 1.99 percent and 1.91 percent respectively.

Macau’s average tourist price index for the four quarters up to June 30, dropped by 1.67 percent from the previous period, said the Statistics and Census Service.

Macau’s tourist price index is designed to reflect the price change of goods and services purchased by visitors.

The other representative categories are: “food”; “alcoholic beverages and tobacco”; “restaurant services”; “medicine and personal goods”; and “entertainment and cultural activities”.