The number of guests from mainland China checking into Macau’s hotels grew by 168.1% month-on-month in October to 358,000, with local guest stays up 13.6%, as the hospitality industry began its COVID-19 recovery in earnest.
While the number of mainland Chinese guests still represented a substantial 56.1% decline over the same month in 2019, it was considerably improved from the 131,000 Chinese guests recorded in September 2020, which in turn was almost 200% higher than the 44,000 guests in August according to figures published by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
The total number of guests in October was 438,000, up from 212,000 in September.
The DSEC said average occupancy of Macau’s hotels was 40%, slightly below the 42.8% reported by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) last week, which was based on figures sourced from 38 hotels listed as members of the Macau Hotel Association.
The 40% average occupancy rate in October was increased from just 17.1% in September, the DSEC said.
For the first 10 months of 2020 combined, the average occupancy rate of guest rooms is down 66.0% year-on-year to 24.6%, with the number of guests down 76.0% to 2,819,00.