2018 tourist numbers are ‘good result’

Helena de Senna Fernandes

The MGTO director, Helena de Senna Fernandes, said that it was a “good result” to have the number of visitor arrivals to Macau in 2018 growing by 9.8 percent to a total of 35.8 million (see page 5). Helena de Senna Fernandes also highlighted growth between 6 and 7 percent in relation to both hotel overnight guests and visitor expenditure.

Contributing to that extra spending was the average rate of hotel rooms. For units classified from three to five stars (the large majority of the region), the average rate was USD168.8 (approx. MOP1,364) per night. Local hotels also registered throughout 2018 an average occupancy rate of above 90 percent, which grew by 3 percent year-on-year.

In response to media questions on the topic of the high occupancy rate of local hotels, and high hotel rates and how this may relate to the growing numbers of illegal accommodations, the director of MGTO said, “we carried out two surveys in the past and from the results we can see that more than 90 percent of people supported ‘Bnb’ (bed and breakfast style accommodations) in Macau but [these same] people don’t want the ‘Bnb’ to be near their houses. So we think that the community does show concern over [the establishment] of ‘Bnb’ in Macau. So I think we will need to first decide whether illegal accommodation would be considered as a criminal offence and the next step would be more research to see if we really can have ‘Bnb’ in Macau.”