City showing signs of improved hotel occupancy ahead of Golden Week

According to sources contacted by the Times, a popular hotel on the Cotai Strip was said to be fully booked, while two other five-star hotels have 400 rooms and 600 rooms, from a little over 2,000 rooms, booked prior to the start of the national holiday.
That comes as early reports suggest Macau hotels are seeing an average hotel occupancy rate of between 30% and 40%. The figure marks an improvement over estimates last week that pointed to less than 20%.
Despite the reopening of the city’s borders to visitors from its number one source market, government and gaming officials still have low expectations regarding incoming visitor numbers.
The MGTO has a target of just 50% hotel occupancy during this holiday, as it is only expecting as few as 12,000 to 16,000 daily visitor arrivals.
The bureau previously noted that it will take quite a long period of time to return to pre-pandemic levels of tourism.
Although the central government has endorsed the Macau SAR as a destination for its residents to travel to, some analysts are still skeptical as to whether many are aware that Macau’s borders have already re-opened.
Last year, the number of Golden Week visitors from the mainland reached over 793,000 from a total of nearly 1 million. The hotel occupancy rate in October 2019 stood at 86.9%. LV