Plenty of bargains for guests
The Year of the Rooster is off to a great start in Macau, which continues its slow but steady recovery from a 26-month recession. According to the Macau Business Daily, visitor arrivals and hotel occupancy are both on the ascent, and could grow between 5 percent and 10 percent year-on-year for the Chinese New Year holidays.
Macau is now entering its sixth full month of positive year-on-year revenues after a downturn that began in mid-2014 and ended last August. At the same time, several new integrated resorts added thousands of new hotel rooms on the city’s Cotai Strip. Chan Chi Kit, president of the Macau Hoteliers & Innkeepers Association, said those new resorts, along with the devaluation of the renminbi, are the chief drivers of visitation to the gaming mecca. Eighty percent of holiday tourists are expected to hail from the Chinese Mainland, he added.
Additional supply will mean cheaper rooms for tourists. Average rates could be down 40 percent from 2016, but such bargains could entice more visitors to extend their stays, said Chan. Hotels are competing with each other for guests, with promotional campaigns that even include free rooms in some cases.
“The openings of new hotel resorts and the attractive discounted prices offered for a room have boosted the hotel bookings for the period,” said Andy Wu Keng Kuong, president of the Macau Travel Industry Council.
Meanwhile, analysts at the Telsey Advisory Group predict gross gaming revenues for January will rise by “high single digits.” They “remain comfortable with the expectations for strength” throughout the first quarter, but say there is “limited visibility” for the long term.
Analysts at Morningstar recently raised their prediction for full-2017 to a 6 percent year-on-year increase in gross gaming revenue.
