Golden Week looking good, say analysts
All of Macau’s casinos voluntarily closed for Typhoon Mangkhut, a Category 10 weather event that struck the MSAR on September 16. All the gaming halls have since reopened.
According to GGRAsia, Macau apparently learned its lesson in the aftermath of Typhoon Hato, which hit in August 2017, causing extensive flooding and damage to structures and killing 10 people. Ahead of Mangkhut, called a “super-typhoon” in some reports, all of Macau’s casinos closed from late Saturday until early Monday morning. The blanket closure was “unprecedented in Macau,” the news outlet reported, and may have saved lives, said Macau Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong.
The World Meteorological Organization called Mangkhut the strongest tropical cyclone of the year to date. Though the storm did not rise to the destructive level of Hato, it left an estimated 20,000 households without power and caused severe flooding.
Businesswise, the casinos took a big hit. Brokerage Union Gaming said Mangkhut may have caused between MOP1.1 billion (US$136 million) and MOP1.5 billion in gross gaming revenue losses.
Golden Week may balance the scales. All indicators look positive for the upcoming weeklong celebration that starts October 1. The Macau News Agency reported that the number of hotel rooms booked for the week has doubled year-on-year, with notable strength on the grind mass side versus the premium category.
“We expect strong GGR growth in the second half of September due to the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and strong hotel ADR/occupancy should bode well for October,” said the Morgan Stanley team in a note. “However, the growth rate is slowing and grind mass is probably doing better than premium mass.” Five hotels are already fully occupied, including Wynn Macau and Grand Lisboa in the Macau Peninsula and MGM Cotai, Wynn Palace and the Parisian in the Cotai district. Another five are fully booked for six days.
