Macau is likely to receive 1.2 million visitors during the eight-day Chinese-mainland holiday encompassing China’s National Day on October 1 and the lunar calendar-based Mid-Autumn Festival, which this year falls on October 6.
That is according to Saturday comments by Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of Macao Government Tourism Office, who said the figure was based on her department’s estimate of 150,000 visitors per day.
She was speaking to the Chinese-language radio service of public broadcaster TDM.
That holiday break is typically a peak autumn business period for casino gambling in Macau, and is known often as October Golden Week.
Ms Senna Fernandes stated that since this year’s October Golden Week holiday was to be one day longer than the same period last year, it was estimated that more tourists would visit Macau.
She also anticipated the overall hotel occupancy rate in Macau during the holiday season would exceed 90 percent.
The tourism boss further noted that hotel room rates fluctuate during certain holidays, but such increases were reasonable.
According to GGRAsia checks last week, over 20 luxury hotels in Macau – all housed within casino resort complexes – appeared to have sold out their rooms for at least five nights during the upcoming October Golden Week.
