Macau received nearly 100,000 visitors during the Easter and Ching Ming Festival holidays, according to the Macao Government Tourism Office.
Mainland China – the only place currently to have a travel bubble with Macau – marked the Ching Ming period with holidays from April 3 to 5. The Easter-Ching Ming holiday season in Macau ran from April 2 to April 6.
Across the aggregate five-day break, Macau welcomed 99,568 visitors, an average daily volume of almost 20,000 arrivals. The daily average was nonetheless 17.0 percent down on the daily volume in March.
Mainland visitors accounted for 90.9 percent of all the arrivals. People entering Macau on either Hong Kong or Taiwan travel documents accounted for 7,678 and 1,399 arrivals respectively.
Investment analysts have said that volume of visitors to Macau is not necessarily correlated positively or negatively to casino gross gaming revenue (GGR).
A Wednesday note from brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd said Macau GGR for the first six days of April was flat compared to the prior week.
The average hotel occupancy rate during the April 2 to 6 period was 53.1 percent, according to the Macao Government Tourism Office. The occupancy rates of three-star, four-star and five-star hotels were 59.0 percent, 53.4 percent and 53.2 percent respectively.
The average room rate of hotel establishments – hotels and guest houses – in Macau was about MOP953.20 (US$118.90) from April 2 to 6. The average room rates of five-star and four-star hotels were around MOP1,142.20 and MOP654.10 respectively. The average room rates of three-star and two-star hotels were around MOP557.40 and MOP206.40 respectively.
The tourism bureau said in its Wednesday release that since September – coinciding with the full reinstatement of the mainland’s Individual Visit Scheme exit visa system – it had been “strenuously promoting” Macau to mainland consumers, as a “healthy, safe and quality destination”.
Among the promotion efforts were a “Beijing Macao Week” and a “Macao Week in Hangzhou” organised in September and March respectively.
