Macau’s gaming revenues may be showing slower than expected recovery but there appears to be better news on the horizon with five-star hotels already at 80% capacity for the upcoming Golden Week Holiday and five of those already fully booked.
According to a survey of Macau hotels conducted by investment bank Morgan Stanley, 10 of the SAR’s top five-star hotels are reporting an average occupancy rate of 80% for the National Day holiday period starting 1 October 2020, while five hotels are already booked out – Four Seasons, Morpheus, Ritz-Carlton, StarWorld and Studio City.
There are also positive signs for this coming weekend (18 to 20 September) with occupancy rates for 10 hotels surveyed currently at between 50% and 55% compared with just 7% in July. It is also between two and five times higher than the occupancy rate on the weekend of 4 to 6 September, which was the first weekend following the approval of some IVS visas for residents of Guangdong Province.
As previously reported by Inside Asian Gaming, authorities reinstated IVS for Zhuhai on 12 August and Guangdong Province from 26 August, with the rest of mainland China to follow from 23 September, however GGR has yet to show any significant improvement.
Improved occupancy rates for this weekend have come at the expense of daily room rates, Morgan Stanley says, which are 10% to 55% lower than those of 4 to 6 September as hotel operators look to lure visitors back to Macau. Morpheus and Grand Hyatt, both at Melco’s City of Dreams, have performed best in this respect with rates down only 10% for 18 to 20 September but occupancy high at between 75% and 95% each day.
