The average occupancy rate of Macau’s hotels throughout 2022 fell to just 38.4%, down 11.7 percentage points compared to 2021, according to information from the Statistics and Census Service. It was also well under half of the 90.8% occupancy rate in 2019.
Last year saw just 5.11 million people stay in hotels, down 22.8% year-on-year. The hotel occupancy rate was 90.8% in 2019, including 3.86 million mainland guests – a decrease of 28.1% – although local guests increased slightly to 907,000. The average length of stay was maintained at 1.8 nights.
The year ended slowly too, with the number of hotel guests in December falling by 29.8% year-on-year to 457,000. Mainland guests fell by 35.4% to 340,000 and the number of local guests decreased by 9.9% to 77,000 in the final month of the year.
The number of hotels offering accommodation to the public in December 2022 was 123, an increase of five over the same period in 2011. However, according to the Statistics and Census Service, “the overall number of rooms available decreased by 3.2% year-on-year to 37,000 due to the use of some rooms for [quarantine] by large hotels.”
Macau was severely impacted by COVID-19 restrictions in 2022, with visitor arrivals falling by 26% to 5.7 million, which in turn led to a drop in hotel occupancy.
In 2019, before the outbreak, the annual hotel occupancy rate was 90.8%, with 14.1 million people staying in hotels.
Macau relaxed its entry restrictions on 8 January this year, resulting in a significant increase in visitor arrivals. During the recently passed Chinese New Year Golden Week (21 to 27 January), the hotel occupancy rate was 85.7%. This was 47.3 percentage points higher than the average hotel occupancy rate for the whole of 2022.
MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes said on Monday, “Macau’s hotel occupancy rate during the Chinese New Year holiday was high, with occupancy rates reaching 90% on three of the seven days of the holiday. MGTO estimates that the average daily number of visitors to Macau this year will be 40,000.”
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