Macau saw its daily gross gaming revenue jump 92% during the first nine days of May compared with the final week of April, boosted by a surprisingly strong Golden Week holiday.
The average daily rate of MOP$500 million was well above late April’s MOP$260 million per day, with Golden Week pushing up to MOP$630 million per day or 60% of 2019 levels. Post Golden Week, while more subdued, has remained encouraging at around MOP$340 per day according to weekly analyst GGR reports published Monday.
JP Morgan’s DS Kim, Derek Choi and Livy Lyu estimate mass GGR recovered to at least 70% of 2019 May Golden Week levels despite visitation remaining at just 25%
“This reflects a strong rebound in the premium mass segment and extended length-of-stay, which in turn should alleviate market concerns on potential spill-over from VIP on premium mass,” the said in a Monday note.
“Low-end base-mass demand remained subdued given a ban on group tours and Hong Kong border closure but we’re hearing from local travel agencies that package/group tours to Macau might resume soon, which – if it happens – would be a significant boon for a mass recovery.”
Bernstein analysts Vitaly Umansky, Louis Li and Kelsey Zhu added that there have recently been “increased enquiries from Chinese travel agencies on Macau room booking, leading to some seeing group tours/visas resuming later this quarter potentially. We expect a more robust GGR uplift to begin this summer as travel impediments are removed and visitation increases.”
With Golden Week providing a welcome boost, May GGR is tipped to reach between MOP$10.5 billion and MOP$11 billion, better than 40% of May 2019 GGR and moving to 50% by July.
