The hotel occupancy rate for the first month of this year averaged 85.9 percent, up by 4.4 percent compared to the 81.5 percent figure recorded in December 2023, according to new data from the Statistics and Census Service (also known by its Portuguese initials DSEC).
The January occupancy rate represents a year-on-year leap of 14.5 percent – unsurprisingly, given that Macao had just dismantled its Covid-era travel restrictions at the start of 2023.
While the latest numbers are promising, they still fall short of the figure in January 2019, which saw an average occupancy rate of 93 percent.
Five-star hotels saw the highest occupancy, with a rate of 87.2 percent. This was closely followed by four-star and three-star hotels, which recorded rates of 84 percent and 83.8 percent respectively.
[See more: The average hotel occupancy rate last year was 85.2 percent]
There was a significant rise in the number of guests, with 1.32 million people checking into hotels in January. This figure represents a surge of 55.7 percent compared to the same month last year and a rise of 7.4 percent against the corresponding figure in 2019.
Mainland guests accounted for roughly 76 percent of the total, with 1.004 million guests. This was followed by visitors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, who made up 10.6 percent (140,000) and 2.42 percent (32,000) of hotel guests.
Meanwhile, the number of hotels totalled 141, up by 16 in comparison to the same period last year. Guest rooms also rose to 46,000, a year-on-year growth of 20.4 percent.
