Macau hotels received more than one million guests in April, for the first time since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, according to official data released today.
According to data from the Directorate of Statistics and Census Services (DSEC), the Chinese special administrative region recorded 1.1 million guests in April in the approximately 43,000 rooms available in 129 hotels.
In April, the month that includes part of the so-called Golden Week of May 1st, one of the tourist peaks in mainland China, the hotel occupancy rate in Macau was 79.8%, up 50 percentage points in annual terms and the value highest since January 2020.
The average price of hotel rooms in Macau also increased in April, rising by two-thirds compared to the same period in 2022, according to data from the Macau Hotel Association, which brings together 43 local hotels.
A report released by the Directorate of Tourism Services (DST) revealed that the average price stood at 1,370 patacas (158.3 euros) in April, 4.4% more than in the same month of 2019, before the start of pandemic.
The territory, which like the interior of China followed the ‘zero covid’ policy, betting on mass testing, confinement of risk zones and quarantines, announced in December the cancellation of most prevention and containment measures.
On February 6, China lifted the end of all restrictions due to the covid-19 pandemic on travel to Hong Kong and Macau, allowing the resumption of organized tours to the two cities.
Macau received almost 97,000 visitors on organized tours in April, four thousand more than in the previous month, DSEC revealed today, but still far from the almost 882,000 registered in April 2019, before the start of the pandemic.
The overwhelming majority (96.3%) of visitors on excursions came from mainland China, the region’s most important tourist market, which also registered groups of visitors from Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and India.
Also today, DSEC revealed that Macau hosted 208 meetings, conferences, exhibitions and incentive events in the first quarter of this year, more than double the number registered in the same period of 2022.
