August saw the number of international hotel guests grow by 21 percent, year-on-year, though South Koreans were up by an even higher 40.3 percent. That’s according to the latest figures from the Statistics and Census Service (known by its Portuguese initials DSEC).
However, the total number of hotel guests in Macao was down by 3.8 percent overall, when compared with August 2023, coming in at 1,261,000. The figure is 99.7 percent of the pre-pandemic total recorded in August 2019.
The average length of stay held stable year-on-year at 1.6 nights, an increase of 0.1 nights when compared to August 2019.
[See more: Macao braces for a tourism boom during the National Day holidays]
The average occupancy rate of guest rooms last month rose by 2.8 percentage points year-on-year to 91.3 percent. The rates for 5-star (93.4 percent) and 3-star hotels (90.8 percent) were up by 2.8 percentage points and 9.5 percentage points respectively.
Tourists visiting Macao on package tours in August climbed by 68.8 percent year-on-year, and by 19.1 percent when compared to the month prior. However, the number of such tourists arriving from outside Greater China experienced a 15.4 percent month-on month decline.
A total of 224,000 package tourists arrived last month, the vast majority hailing from the mainland. Foreigners accounted for 11,000 of package tourists, down from 13,000 in July (through up by 44.3 percent year-on-year).
