Wynn Macau Ltd generated US$3 million of EBITDA per day during the recent May Golden Week, by far its best performance since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic according to comments made by Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox.
The update formed part of Wynn Resorts’ 1Q21 earnings call early Tuesday morning (Asia time), with the company’s Macau properties having seen operating revenues rise 3.4% quarter-on-quarter to US$417 million and operating loss narrow considerably to US$75 million.
More notable, however, has been the company’s recovery trajectory in the two months since – particularly in Golden Week.
“What we’re seeing now is more relevant than what we experienced in the first quarter as … momentum continued in April and into May,” said Maddox.
“We experienced and generated US$3 million of normalized EBITDA per day during Golden Week, by far the highest amount of normalized profit that we’ve been able to generate since the onset of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020.
“Even with the junket volumes continuing to fluctuate between 25% and 30% of Golden Week 2019, we were able to achieve these results because we focused our business on mass and premium mass.
“We’ve been converting space that was previously for VIP into premium mass space and we feel very comfortable and confident with our position in the Macau market. In fact, we generated 76% of our mass volumes during Golden Week this year compared to Golden Week in 2019.”
Hotel occupancy at Wynn’s Macau properties, Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau, reached 93% during Golden Week while retail sales, described as the company’s “shining star”, were 80% higher than in 2019.
Maddox noted that the gradual easing of border restrictions between Macau and mainland China had resulted in Wynn seeing a number of new premium mass customers “just because Macau is an option for people to travel.
“We think that over the long term, Macau opening up to China is allowing us to acquire customers that we’ve never seen before,” he said.
“I think that each week that goes by, even excluding Golden Week, it is getting stronger so we’re feeling good about the back end of May and into June.”
