GGRAsia – Many Macau 5-star casino hotels full for Labour Day break

Many Macau 5-star casino hotels full for Labour Day break

Apr 25, 2019 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

The majority of Macau’s top five-star casino hotels are already fully booked for at least part of the upcoming Labour Day holiday, according to information collated by GGRAsia from the hotels’ respective official booking sites.

Mainland Chinese citizens are likely to be able to enjoy at minimum four consecutive days of recreation during the Labour Day holiday, i.e., during the period Wednesday, May 1, to Saturday, May 4, inclusive, which is prescribed as an official festive period by China’s State Council. A significant part of Mainland Chinese citizens is likely to be able to enjoy a fifth consecutive day of recreation, as May 5 is a Sunday.

In 2018, the official Labour Day holiday period in mainland China – as prescribed by the State Council – included only three consecutive days.

As of Thursday afternoon, a total of 18 out of 23 five-star casino hotels in Macau were fully booked for at least three out of the four nights covered by the Labour Day break, according to data collated by GGRAsia.

These five-star hotels included: MGM Macau and MGM Cotai, both run by MGM China Holdings Ltd; Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace, run by Wynn Macau Ltd; Altira Macau, run by Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd; Galaxy Hotel, Banyan Tree Macau, Hotel Okura Macau, the Ritz-Carlton, Macau, and JW Marriott Hotel Macau, as well as Broadway Macau, respectively part of Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd’s Cotai properties; Galaxy Entertainment’s StarWorld Hotel on Macau peninsula; Sands Macao, Venetian Macao, Conrad Macao Cotai Central, Sheraton Grand Macao Hotel Cotai Central and Four Seasons, all part of the casino resorts promoted by Sands China Ltd; and Grand Lisboa on the peninsula, run by SJM Holdings Ltd.

Holiday Inn Macao Cotai Central, a four-star hotel at Sands China’s Sands Cotai Central casino complex, was also fully booked for three out of the four nights covered by the Labour Day break.

Several of Macau’s casino hotels are expected to undergo extensive renovation in 2019, including plans to revamp their respective hotel inventories. Some of these projects are already ongoing – including the conversion of Sands Cotai Central into the Londoner – and are likely to have a negative impact on room availability in Macau throughout the year.

Macau had a total of about 38,700 guest rooms as of February, of which 63 percent were located in five-star hotels, according to the latest available figures from the city’s Statistics and Census Service.

According to checks on Thursday afternoon by GGRAsia covering the properties still not fully booked for the Labour Day holiday period, the price per night on May 1 or May 2 for a standard hotel room in a five-star casino property in Macau could range from HKD2,400 (US$306) to more than HKD7,600 – excluding service fees and taxes.

Last year, several major Macau casino resorts also saw strong advance bookings for for the then three-day Labour Day vacation.

Macau’s average hotel occupancy rate for the Labour Day break in 2018 – including hotels and guesthouses – reached 94.3 percent, with an average room rate of MOP1,612.5 (US$200), according to data compiled by the city’s tourism bureau.