Macau gears up for busy Golden Week

Macau’s seasonal dip is expected to turn around during Golden Week in October. The seven-day national holiday is typically a peak tourism time in the Chinese special administrative region (SAR).

Demand for hotel rooms is high. Hong Kong brokerage CSLA reports that 82% of the 34 Macau hotels it assessed are fully booked for the first weekend of October. That beats the numbers for May’s Golden Week, as well as Golden Week in October 2023.

Six of Galaxy Entertainment’s eight hotels have been sold out since June. MGM Macau and MGM Cotai are also booked up—a total of 2,000 rooms between them.

Investment bank UBS agrees that bookings are “(tracking) solidly.” The team observes that “new and younger” patrons are becoming more important to Macau’s visitor mix. Operators are responding with more non-gaming attractions, including entertainment.

“The concert pipeline during the holiday period should drive incremental demand to Macau, in our view,” UBS added.

IVS program boosts visitation
Gaming demand is also high, despite a slower economy, thanks in part to visitors from cities recently added to the individual visa scheme (IVS) list. The IVS program allows mainland Chinese to visit the SAR on their own, without a tour group.

UBS analysts expect gross gaming revenue (GGR) to reach up to MOP950m (£89.8m/€106.2m/$118m) per day during the holiday, according to an analysts note.

Jeffries Equity Research says increased visitation is a sign of Macau’s continuing post-Covid recovery. So far this year, an estimated 19.7 million people have visited the city. That’s 17.1% lower than in 2019, but a “significant improvement” over last year, Jeffries noted.

Crackdown on money exchanges not make-or-break
The CSLA team shrugged off investor fears about Macau’s crackdown on illegal money exchanges at casinos, calling them “likely overdone.” They pointed to last month’s GGR—MOP19.7bn, the year’s second highest total after MOP20.1bn in May—as a sign of health for the industry.

Even so, the firm has cut GGR forecasts for Macau through 2025 due to the crackdown, which launched in June. It now predicts this year’s take will top out at MOP228.3bn, down from 243.57bn. Next year, it estimates total GGR of MOP238bn.

Last year at this time, almost 1 million people visited Macau for the holiday, which kicks off with National Day on 1 October.