Macau’s hotels were full to the brim in May, with official data showing 89.8% occupancy during the month – a 1.8 percentage point increase year-on-year.
The strong occupancy was largely due to the May Golden Week holiday from 1 to 5 May, with knock-on visitation boosting hotel occupancy even after the holiday.
Four-star hotels saw a 6.9 percentage point uptick in occupancy rate in May – reaching 87.7%– while five-star hotels enjoyed 92.8% occupancy, a 1.1 percentage point increase.
Three-star hotels during the month saw a slight decrease in occupancy rate of 0.6 percentage points to 83.8%.
Despite the overall rise in occupancy, the number of hotel guests actually decreased in May compared to the same month last year. A total of 1.17 million hotel guests were registered, down by 4.5%.
Guest numbers from mainland China were down by 6.2% to 847,000, while those from Hong Kong decreased by 8.6%, to 148,000, according to the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
During the first five months of the year combined, the average hotel occupancy rate of hotels in Macau was 91.4%, up by 2.2 percentage points year-on-year, with the number of guests rising by 0.3% to 6.02 million. Of these, international guests totaled 569,000, increasing by 14.3% year-on-year.
Macau’s Labor Day Golden Week holiday in mainland China typically causes a massive surge in travel within the country, with Macau benefitting from the surge. During the holiday period, Macau welcomed about 873,000 visitors – up by 2.7% year-on-year, with the total number of border crossings during the five-day period topping 3.8 million, up by 1.6%.
The majority of the visitors during the holiday, 83%, were from mainland China, with Hong Kong visitors making up 10.8%. International visitors made up 4.9% of the holidaymakers.
During the month overall, the number of inbound package tour visitors rose by 2.5% to 141,000, with tour visitor numbers from mainland China up by 6% year-on-year to 115,000.
During the first five months of the year, Macau welcomed 759,000 package tour visitors, down by 12.1% yearly, despite an increase in international tour visitors of 2.9% to 102,000.
