Visitor arrivals to Macau are down in August as the number of tourists from mainland China keeps falling.
According to data released by the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) on Wednesday, Macau received 3.03 million visitors last month, up 14.5% from the previous month but down 1.7% year-on-year.
The daily average of visitor arrivals in August stood at 101,103 with the same-day visitors amounting to 53% of the total, down 3.5%year-on-year. The number of overnight visitors rose slightly by 0.4% to 1.42 million.
Mainland visitors dropped 1.7% year-on-year to 2.09 million, accounted for 69% of all visitor arrivals. Hong Kong residents made up 21.1% of the total number of visitor arrivals. Their number was up 0.8% year-on-year while those from the Republic of Korea declined by 24.9% to 43,710.
In the first eight months, visitor arrivals totaled 20.4 million, down by 3.2%.
Secretary of Social Affairs and Culture Alexis Tam Chon Weng has said he is sure that the inflow of tourists to Macau will recover and that the city will have over 32 million visitors this year.
“We are very confident that the number of visitors will be similar to the figures we planned for at the beginning of the year,” Tam said on TDM television.
Macau GGR likely to drop 32% according to HSBC
The first 20 days of September yielded MOP11.8 billion ($1.5b) in gambling revenue in Macau, indicating a full-month decline of 30 to 32% year-on-year, driven in part by the Dore scandal, according to HSBC Research.
Daily run rate during the past week came in at MOP493 million per day, dropping significantly from MOP607 million per day the week before.
“The Dore incident, which happened over 10 days ago, is another contributing factor as it has triggered some redemption from depositors, similar to the Huang Shan incident that we observed in April 2014,” said the firm.
Citi Research also said in a note the daily rate decrease also likely reflects the usual seasonal slowdown before National Day Golden Week, expecting full September GGR forecast at MOP17.5 billion, a decrease of 32% year-on-year.
