Macau continues to rebound from its Covid doldrums, with recent visitation handily reaching pre-pandemic levels.
According to Inside Asian Gaming, the recent three-day Chung Yeung holiday drew a total of 301,705 tourists to Macau, for an average of 100,568 per day. The Public Security Police Force recorded 110,468 arrivals on October 22 and 107,956 on October 23, the first and second days. An additional 83,275 visitors entered the city on October 24, the final day of the three-day weekend.
Cheung Yeung, also known as Chongyang or the Double Ninth Festival, honors the dead and is celebrated by hiking and the drinking of wine. It is celebrated both in Macau and Hong Kong.
During the same holiday period in 2019, the city saw an average of 107,962 visitor arrivals each day. On September 30, the city posted the highest single-day visitation figure since Macau reopened its borders in January. On that Saturday, the second day of the national Golden Week holiday, almost 159,000 tourists came to Macau.
As reported by GGRAsia, analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi, and Selina Li of JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) project that gross gaming revenues (GGR) in Macau will be at least MOP18.5 billion (US$2.30 billion) for October. That would make it the best monthly performance since January 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic began. The health crisis virtually closed travel to Macau for three years.
The analysts said that the results are “not surprising, but still assuring,” and added that October is “quite comfortably … on track to hit another post-pandemic high.”
