GGRAsia – Macau has nearly 1mln arrivals in 8-day autumn Golden Week

Macau has nearly 1mln arrivals in 8-day autumn Golden Week

Oct 09, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau logged nearly a million visitor arrivals in just eight days of a Chinese holiday season, this year representing a combination of the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day celebrations, and commonly called autumn Golden Week.

The information was in a Saturday press release issued by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).

The aggregate of 932,365 arrivals from September 29 to October 6 inclusive, encompassed a daily peak of 158,726 on Saturday, September 30. That was described as a high not only for this year, but also since the onset in early 2020 of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nearly 76.1 percent of visitors, or 709,079, were from the Chinese mainland. A further 18.4 percent, or 171,672, were from Macau’s neighbouring special administrative region, Hong Kong. Additionally, 4.4 percent, or 40,931, were classified as “international visitors”, and 1.1 percent, or 10,683, as coming from Taiwan.

Average daily visitor arrivals during autumn Golden Week “surged 3.7-fold year-on-year and rebounded to nearly 84 percent of the corresponding figure in 2019,” stated the tourism authorities. “The average hotel occupancy rate topped 87.9 percent,” they added.

In a Sunday memo, JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd noted that the number of tourists from mainland China, which it identified as the “key revenue driver” for the city’s casino resorts,“recovered to 84 percent of 2019’s Golden Week, which was bang in-line with our expectation and a tad better than 81 percent recovery during the summer”.

“Our checks with various channels on the ground indicate the pace of mass GGR [gross gaming revenue] recovery has continued its upward trends in Golden Week … allowing us to keep our forecasts unchanged at 100-percent-plus recovery in mass GGR,” wrote analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi and Selina Li.

The Macau government also cited the China Tourism Academy’s “Big Data Report on Outbound Tourism in the First Half of 2023,” indicating Macau as the “top outbound destination” for residents of mainland China.

“The positive trend has created momentum for MGTO to forge ahead with various promotions and special offers,” stated Saturday’s update.

It added that the prospects for Macau’s tourism trade were “bright”.

The government stated daily visitor arrivals averaged 116,546 during the National Day holiday period, which it said was up 18.7 percent on the spring Golden Week, a five-day break encompassing China’s Labour Day on May 1, and running from April 29 to May 3 inclusive.

The update said industry figures indicated Macau hotels had an average occupancy rate of 87.9 percent during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday period, a year-on-year increase of 23.7 percentage points compared with the prior National Day holiday, when travel restrictions were still in place.

The average hotel occupancy rate spiked at 94.3 percent on October 1, “the highest” this year.

The average room rate – including for hotels, apartment hotels and budget accommodation – was around MOP1,804.1 (about US$224) during the latest holiday period, up 61.7 percent from the prior National Day holiday period, and an increase of 0.9 percent from the Labour Day holiday this year, said MGTO.