Inside Asian Gaming

IAG OCT 2020年10月 亞博匯 25 封面故事 of concessions in 2022 may make it more cloudy in other aspects.” CONSUMER CONFIDENCE Forecasts “remain largely educated guesses at this time,” a September research note from Bernstein’s Umansky with analysts Tianjiao Yu and Kelsey Zhu cautions. “We believe the drivers of recovery will be confidence levels of customers to travel and spend, opening up Hong Kong to Macau travel and an increase in frequency of air transportation within Greater China to airports in Guangdong/HK/Macau to facilitate long-haul travel. Further, the pace of recovery will be partly driven by the economic environment in China, including any significant monetary easing (with the latter looking less likely at present).” Despite the pandemic slowdown, Zhu believes Chinese consumers have enough disposable income to support gaming recovery. “They do in the long run, but unlikely within the next 12 months or so,” he says. “A lot of them are sort of in a wait-and-see mode before they feel sure about which direction to go.” Says Sui, who also directs the University of Macau’s Center for Tourism and Integrated Resort Studies, “Negative income and wealth effects to Chinese patrons under the trade war and political tensions between the US and China may continue vexing the market in the coming years.” HONG KONG CONNECTION There’s still a big piece of Macau’s travel puzzle missing – Hong Kong – which, unlike Macau, has experienced repeated waves of COVID outbreaks. Travelers from Hong Kong to Macau remain subject to 14-day quarantine. Hong Kong accounted for 7.35 million visitors, nearly one-in-five Macau arrivals, in 2019. But its impact goes beyond that. “A lot of people don’t understand: so much of the traffic to Macau is driven through Hong Kong,” Delta State Holdings Managing Partner David Bonnet Border restrictions between Macau and mainland China have severely impacted Macau’s gross gaming revenues. 澳門與內地之間的出入境管制嚴重影響了澳門的博彩收入。