November’s average nightly rate for Macau five-star hotels declined 3.1 percent year-on-year, to MOP1,563.0 (US$195.4). Nonetheless, the average occupancy rate increased 8.8 percentage points, to 95.3 percent.
Those data are from the latest monthly survey by the Macau Hotel Association, published by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
Last month’s five-star nightly-rate was up circa 4.8 percent compared to the same month in the pre-pandemic trading year of 2019. Then, the average for the category was MOP1,491.3, according to the trade body’s data.
The Macau Hotel Association’s membership currently consists of 47 hotels. More than half of them – i.e., 27 – are five-star properties, and most of those are within casino resorts either in the Cotai district, or on Macau peninsula. The other member hotels are either four-star or three-star.
The third quarter ending September 30, had already seen a year-on-year decline in the five-star average rate, at MOP1,539.93; down about 5.4 percent from the MOP1,627.8 in the same period last year.
In November, the three-, four- and five-star categories in combination, generated an average nightly rate of MOP1,395.1, down 0.7 percent year-on-year. The average for four-star hotels saw a year-on-year rise of 3.4 percent, while that for the three-star hotels was down 8.9 percent.
The average occupancy rate across all the association’s tiers was 95.0 percent that month, up 7.4 percentage points from a year ago.
So far this year, February saw the highest average room rate across all tiers of property within the association’s membership. The month included China’s Lunar New Year holiday. February’s average room rate across the three tiers stood at MOP1,544.9, while that for the five-star tier was MOP1,732.3.
Separate data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service, indicate that as of the third quarter, Macau had 38 five-star hotels in service, with an aggregate of 25,452 guest rooms. The five-star hotel guest room tally for the period was down by nearly 7 percent from a year ago.
Five-star accommodation accounted for 59.2 percent of Macau’s 43,004 hotel rooms in service in the third quarter, show the statistics bureau’s data.
