The number of visitors to Macau over the first five days of Golden Week grew 13.3% to 780,238, according to statistics released by the Macao Government Tourism Office.
The increase came on the back of ever-improving numbers in the lead-up to the weekend, capped by a 21.9% year-on-year increase on Saturday to 163,370 visitors. It also puts visitor numbers on track to comfortably beat the 890,000 to cross Macau’s borders during the 2018 October Golden Week.
The border gate proved the most popular point of entry over the first five days of the week, with 481,879 visitors flowing through. Another 91,749 arrived via the Cotai Checkpoint, 70,047 via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and 50,044 by air.
Mainland China contributed the majority of visitors with 656,687, representing an 11.6% increase on 2018 numbers. However, analysts have warned that higher visitor numbers are unlikely to translate to higher gaming revenue.
“While hotel bookings are solid, we expect the quality of the customers will be lower (i.e. lower spend per head) this year,” said Bernstein’s Vitaly Umansky, Eunice Lee and Kelsey Zhu.
“Room comps will be high during the period, but likely go to an average lower spend customer than in 2018. Consequently, higher end play will likely remain tepid during Golden Week and during the whole of October.”
