Inside Asian Gaming

www.asgam.com EDITORIAL Asia’s viral spiral I t’s true there is never a dull moment in the gaming industry, but it’s fair to say that none of us could have anticipated the massive impact COVID-19 would have on everything we take for granted in early 2020. With Inside Asian Gaming ’s home base being Macau, we’ve witnessed firsthand how a usually busy and vibrant entertainment hub has been transformed almost overnight into a ghost town, and I can only imagine what the past five weeks have been like for Macau’s casino operators. One minute they were touting full hotel occupancies for Chinese New Year, the next watching visitor numbers plummet by 80% during their most important week of the year. Those numbers fell even further in February, to fewer than 2,000 arrivals per day at one stage, as the government took the unprecedented step of closing all Macau casinos and gaming venues for 15 days to halt the spread of the virus. By comparison, Macau averaged around 108,000 visitors per day in 2019. At least it has given residents the chance to walk empty streets for the first time in decades, a surreal experience unlikely to repeat anytime soon (we hope). I must admit to being somewhat taken aback at the level of response to the virus on a global scale, driven along by escalating panic: face masks, for example, were sold out as far away as England, while in Australia there were reports of some schools telling all students to stay home. I’d hate to think how much the virus has cost the world’s airlines. At the time of writing, there were conflicting reports over the current state of the viral spread in Asia with a handful of governments in the region starting to ease various restrictions while others looked set to tighten.