Macau’s visitor arrivals for February fell 17.3 percent compared to the equivalent period in 2008, according to DSEC—Macau’s Statistics and Census Service.
At first hearing this seems to chime with the much-heralded downturn expected in Macau’s casino revenues for the first half of 2009. But on closer inspection of the figures, just how the number crunchers at DSEC arrived at the decline in visitor numbers is something of a puzzle, given that they aren’t comparing apples with apples.
Back in February 2008, there were 2.42 million ‘visitor’ arrivals to Macau but at that time the statistics didn’t distinguish between tourists and non-resident workers coming and going. In the 2009 figures, movements by non-resident workers are now counted separately, giving arrival figures of 1.65 million for pure tourists and arrival figures of 593,283 for non-resident workers commuting back and forth.
If the February 2009 figures for tourists and non-resident arrivals are added together, the figure for monthly arrivals actually comes to 2.24 million. That’s a fall of only 7.4 percent year on year. So unless DSEC is weighting the figures for 2008 by guessing the pure tourist component and not telling us, then the 17.3 percent year on year fall for visitors in February 2009 appears to be plucked out of the air.
What makes the wonks at Asian Gaming Intelligence even grumpier is that even if the 17.3 percent year-on-year fall in visitors is correct, it pays scant regard to the realities of the lunar calendar, which is vitally important in assessing tourist statistics in China.
February 2008’s visitor arrival figures were in all likelihood inflated by the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, a time when a lot of people tend to visit the territory and its casinos during the seasonal break. As a result the Macau visitor figures for February 2009 (when there was no New Year holiday) were always likely to suffer somewhat in year-on-year comparison.
If all this sounds too much like train spotting, bear with us dear readers. Statistics matter. Casino operators make plans based upon them. Analysts seek to spot trends and call markets based on them. If you put garbage in, you tend to get garbage out at the other end. We await with interest DSEC’s explanation.
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