The number of people visiting Macau on package tours increased 3.1% year-on-year to 682,000 in June, buoyed by strong growth in Korean and Taiwanese visitation.
While the number of people coming from mainland China rose by just 0.1% to 515,000, Korea surged 16.5% to 45,000 while Taiwan jumped 67.6% to 59,000.
Despite June’s figure representing a 4.0% sequential decrease, the combined visitation for the first six months of 2018 hit 4,274,000 – up 13.8% on 2017 numbers.
The number of guest rooms in Macau also grew 7.8% year-on-year to 39,000 at the end of June, including a 10.8% increase in the number of 5-star hotel rooms to 25,000. MGM Cotai and Morpheus both opened in the first half of 2018.
The number of guests of hotels and guesthouses in June 2018 rose by 6.0% year-on-year to 1,157,000, with guests from mainland China (764,000) and Taiwan (44,000) increasing by 11.0% and 4.4% respectively.
The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses stood at 88.0%, up by 2.6 percentage points year-on-year, while the rates of 4-star and 5-star hotels were 91.3% and 90.9% respectively, up by 3.2 percentage points and 4.9 percentage points.
In the first half year of 2018, guests of hotels and guesthouses totaled 6,869,000, up by 7.8% year-on-year.