Macau’s hotel operators are expecting occupancy rates and visitor arrivals to rise during the upcoming seven-day “National Day” Golden Week in October, with hotel booking platforms showing a number of hotels already fully booked for at least some of the holiday period.
As of Tuesday 24 September, according to online hotel room booking platforms Agoda and Booking.com, many hotels located within Macau’s integrated resorts are already fully booked from 1 to 2 October, including Grand Lisboa, MGM Cotai, MGM MACAU, Galaxy Macau, StarWorld, JW Marriott Hotel, Hotel Okura and Sheraton Macau.
As for The Venetian Macao, The Parisian Macao, Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace, remaining rooms are only deluxe king suites, with ordinary king rooms have already sold out. However, compared with the four- and five-star hotels, some 3-star or 2-star hotels still have an abundant supply of rooms.
The booking platforms show that prices for the night of 1 October hover between MOP$1,900 to MOP$3,500 (US$237 to US$437), which was about 20% to 30% higher than that of weekdays. The exact price also depends on the type of room.
The Vice President of the Macau Tourism and Hospitality Association, Robin Yu, told IAG that the hotel occupancy rate for this year’s “National Day” Golden Week will be higher than that of 2023, and is expected to reach 2019 levels.
“The booking rate is about 50% for the time being, but past experience has shown that mainland travellers do not book hotels too quickly before a long holiday, and the favorable policies on tourist visas in recent years have given travellers plenty of time to prepare,” Yu said. “Overall, the occupancy rate during Golden Week is expected to exceed last year’s level.”
However, Yu also pointed out that “there is a difference between the overall market of Macau after the summer holidays last year and that of 2019, mainly because the overseas market of Macau has not yet recovered to the level of 2019, and Macau now relies on the mainland market. The number of mainland visitors has been increasing lately, which is why it is expected that this year’s total number of visitors will be higher than that of 2023.”
As reported by IAG, visitor arrivals to Macau surpassed pre-COVID levels in August for the first time at 3,651,731.
The President of the Travel Industry Council of Macau, Wu Keng Kuong, said the figure gave the industry hope that the number of tourists visiting Macau during Golden Week might reach a record high.
“I believe the National Day Golden Week will be very satisfactory because the August figure exceeded the 2019 level, and the government’s continuous publicity during the years of the pandemic has made Macau a very popular place in the mainland,” he said.
Wu added that the occupancy rate of four- and five-star hotels is already looking satisfactory, and the occupancy situation will be better than that of last year – likely above 90%.
