Macau hotels to close 2022 with second worst occupancy rate ever

The hotel occupancy rate in Macau was 38.4% last year, the second lowest in more than two decades, and 11.7 percentage points lower than in 2021, it was announced today.

According to official data dating back to 1997, the worst year for the territory’s hotels was 2020, at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, with an occupancy rate of 28.6%, due to the ban that for several months China imposed on travel to Macau.

The city recorded 5.11 million guests in 2022, or 22.8% less annually, in the approximately 37,000 rooms available in the 123 hotels, the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) said in a statement.

In December, the hotel occupancy rate in the Chinese special administrative region stood at 42.8%, down 12 percentage points from the same month in 2021, while the number of guests fell 29.8% to 457,000.

Visitor numbers have dropped dramatically in the territory since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic.

Macau, which like inland China was pursuing a ‘zero covid’ policy, relying on mass testing, confinement of risk zones, and quarantines, announced in December the cancellation of most prevention and containment measures after nearly three years of tight restrictions.

With the easing of covid-19 prevention measures, the city recorded 451,000 visitors during the week of the Lunar New Year, nearly triple the 2022 figure, the Tourism Bureau advanced on Sunday.

The authorities also stated that the average hotel occupancy rate was 85.7%, peaking on the third day of the Lunar New Year (January 24) at 92.1%.

In the same statement today, the DSEC revealed that in December, the number of visitors participating in organized tours was 6,100, more than double compared to the same month in 2021, but a far cry from the figure of 543,000 recorded in December 2019.

On January 21, Macau’s head of government, Ho Iat Seng, said he still did not know “whether it is possible to realize within a week or two the resumption of tours” from mainland China to Macau, something announced in September.

With information from MSN