GGRAsia – Macau hotel occupancy down 64ppt in 1H: govt

Macau hotel occupancy down 64ppt in 1H: govt

Jul 29, 2020 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

The average occupancy rate for Macau hotel guest rooms was 27.2 percent in the first half of 2020, a decline of 63.9 percentage points (ppts) year-on-year, said a Wednesday update from the city’s Statistics and Census Service.

In those six months to June 30, the aggregate number of overnight customers at Macau hotels and guest houses declined by 73.5 percent to 1.83 million, although the average length of stay went up by 0.2 of a night, to 1.7 nights, said the statistics bureau.

Earlier this month, the Macau Hotel Association, which represents hotels in the three-star to five-star bracket, said that for the January to May period inclusive, the average nightly room rate across its members’ properties was MOP1,002.80 (US$125.62), down 26.2 percent year-on-year on the MOP1,359.80 achieved in the same period in 2019.

The statistics bureau issued on Wednesday the June hotel occupancy data, which indicated 109 hotels and guest houses were open for business that month.

The number of available guest rooms decreased by 10.6 percent year-on-year in June, to 35,000. The decrease coincided with a time when some hotel rooms were being allocated for compulsory 14-day quarantine imposed on some people coming to the city, including Macao ID holders returning from overseas.

The statistics bureau said that occupancy data on hotels and guest houses used for medical observation “were excluded” from its June occupancy data.

Based on that data, the average nightly occupancy rate for guest rooms fell by 77.6 percentage points year-on-year to 11.8 percent.

The occupancy rate for five-star hotels declined by 84.7 percentage points, to 5.8 percent; while the occupancy rates of four- and three-star hotels dropped by 69.8 percentage points and 69.5 percentage points respectively, to 19.9 percent and 21.1 percent respectively.
Number of guests checked into hotels and guest houses in June, declined by 88 percent year-on-year, to 134,000.

The tallies of checked-in guests from mainland China and Hong Kong both registered decreases of more than 90 percent, at 67,000 and 11,000 respectively.

There were “no package tour visitors coming to Macau in June,” said the Statistics and Census Service”. The authorities in mainland China, an important source market for package tour customers, is currently not issuing tour group exit permits for visits to Macau.

Nonetheless in June, the number of “local” guests grew by 4.2 percent year-on-year, “attributable to the accommodation promotions offered to residents by some hotels,” said the statistics bureau.