Macau’s hotel establishments welcomed more guests and charged more per room in November than they did in the same month of 2019, before the pandemic hit, according to official data released this Friday.
According to the Bureau of Statistics and Census (DSEC), the number of guests in 46 thousand rooms in 141 hotels and guesthouses in the Chinese region exceeded 1.2 million, up 3.6% from November 2019 and almost triple that with the same period last year.
The average price of hotel rooms in Macau also rose in November, up 86.5% from the same period in 2022, according to the Macau Hotel Association, an umbrella group of 43 local hotels.
A report published by the Directorate of Tourism Services (DST) said the average price in November was 1,401 patacas (€157.2), up 4.3% from the same month in 2019, before the pandemic began.
In contrast, the average occupancy rate, which was 82.3% in November, is still 9.5 percentage points below 2019 levels, although it represents an increase of 43.7 percentage points over 2022, DSEC said in a statement.
In the first 11 months of 2023, Macau hotels and guesthouses welcomed 12.2 million guests, up 162.9% from the same period last year, with an average occupancy rate of 81%, more than double that of from January to October 2022, DSEC said. .
However, these values are still lower than those recorded for the same period in 2019, indicating a drop in guest numbers of 637 thousand guests and a decline in occupancy of 10.6 percentage points.
On Wednesday, the DST reported that hotel occupancy reached 90.8% during the Christmas period (December 23 to 26). The figures reflect the recovery of Macau’s tourism sector, which in December 2022 announced the lifting of most prevention and containment measures in the territory, which, like mainland China, is following a “zero coronavirus” policy.
In early January, the Chinese region opened its borders to all foreigners, including tourists, lifting a ban that had been in place for nearly three years.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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