Macau could see a “20 percent” year-on-year increase in visitor arrivals for the Chinese public holiday period surrounding the upcoming Labour Day holiday, said the boss of the city’s tourism promotion body.
The growth in tourist volume was likely to be due in part to travellers arriving via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, stated Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes (pictured in a file photo), director of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), in comments to local media on the sidelines of a Friday event.
The official also estimated the average rate of hotel occupancy in the city would exceed 90 percent during the Labour Day break.
Mainland China residents are likely to be able to enjoy up to four consecutive days off work during the Labour Day festivities. This year China’s State Council has decreed the holiday period will run from Wednesday May 1, to Saturday, May 4, inclusive.
In her comments to media, Ms Senna Fernandes also highlighted her department’s work with airlines and other transport providers to ensure tourists to the city to stay longer. Overnight visitors generally spend more than day trippers according to local research. Ms Fernandes noted the volume of day trippers from mainland China and Hong Kong had stimulated the 21.2-percent rise in Macau’s first-quarter visitor arrivals, which tallied nearly 10.36 million.
The first-quarter inbound visitor volume had “far exceeded” the tourism bureau’s expectation, Ms Fernandes said. According to official data, during the first quarter, overnight visitors accounted for nearly 4.74 million arrivals, while same-day visitors accounted for just over 5.62 million.
During the Labour Day break last year, which covered the period of April 29 – a Sunday in 2018 – to May 1 – a Tuesday – Macau received over 391,000 tourists, a tally that represented a 4.7 percent increase year-on-year, according to statistics published by the city’s Public Security Police at the time. Approximately 92 percent of that inbound tourist volume was from Greater China markets – namely mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan – a year-on-year increase of 7.6 percent during that period.
The average occupancy rate of Macau’s hotels and guest houses during 2018’s three-day break associated with Labour Day was 94.3 percent. The average room rate was MOP1,612.50 (US$200), according to data compiled by MGTO.
A number of Macau’s five-star casino resorts – most of them in Cotai – has seen strong advance hotel bookings for the upcoming Labour Day festive period, according to information GGRAsia collated from the respective official booking websites of major properties.
