The Director of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, has revealed that Macau’s hotel occupancy reached 89% last weekend, with more than 100,000 visitors per day. Based on preliminary statistics, there were 11.6 million inbound visitor arrivals to Macau in the first half of the year.
In an interview with local media after attending the opening ceremony of G2E Asia on Tuesday morning, Senna Fernandes said the hotel industry was recovering well.
“The supply of hotel rooms has increased by 5,000 rooms compared to the pre-epidemic period, and now stands at 47,000 hotel rooms, with a lot of new tourism facilities being added to Macau’s integrated resorts,” she said.
“Last weekend (Saturday and Sunday) the hotel occupancy rate reached 89% and the number of visitors exceeded 100,000 in both cases, while the average number of visitors per day in the past week was nearly 80,000.”
Asked whether Macau was well positioned to cope with an expected influx of visitor arrivals as Macau enters the summer peak season, Senna Fernandes added, “Macau’s hotel rooms are basically all open now, but there is still a shortage of manpower in the face of the peak season of tourists, and the government will work together with the industry to solve the manpower problem.”
She also revealed that, since the easing of border restrictions on 8 January, the number of visitors has been steadily increasing and it is now estimated that there were 11.6 million visitors in the first six months of 2023. By comparison, there were 39.4 million arrivals through all of 2019 but just 5.7 million in 2022.
“The number of Mainland visitors to Macau has returned to 60% of the pre-epidemic level and Hong Kong visitors to 90%, while the overseas market has only returned to 20%,” Senna Fernandes said. She further explained that international visitation to Macau is limited by the lack of flights, and the government still needs to do more publicity.
Having held a promotional event in Hong Kong from 7 to 9 July, the MGTO will head to South Korea this weekend.
