Hotel occupancy at 39% in June amid city’s outbreak

The average occupancy rate of guest rooms in June dropped by 6.3 percentage points year-on-year to 39.1% amid the start of the city’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak that occurred mid June.

Data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) shows that the rate for 5-star hotels was 31.9%, a decrease of 12.2 percentage points year-on-year.

The number of guests of hotel establishments in June went down by 10.3% year-on-year to 421,000 as mainland guests (315,000) and local guests (78,000) fell by 11.9% and 5.6% respectively. 

This comes after the city faced a fresh wave of the outbreak that led to Zhuhai requiring arrivals from Macau to undergo a two-week quarantine, deterring visitors from traveling to the city.

The city has already been bitten by the lockdown in Shanghai and several districts in the Greater Bay Area during the first quarter of this year, as well as the strict entry measures put in place to implement a zero-Covid strategy.

Hotels had some up-turn in May and were slowly recovering; while June, which is traditionally a busy month was not going “too badly.”

In the first half of 2022, the average occupancy rate of guest rooms of hotel establishments decreased by 12.8 percentage points year-on-year to 37.6%. The number of guests went down by 22.3% year-on-year to 2,624,000, whereas their average length of stay remained stable at 1.8 nights.

In June, visitors joining local tours totalled 1,800, representing a decline of 72.3% year-on-year; the number of Macau residents purchasing outbound services (bookings for transport, accommodation and sightseeing tours) through travel agencies tumbled by 82.8% to 3,600.

Local tours were also halted during the recent outbreak and only resumed yesterday. 

In the first half of 2022, the number of local tour visitors decreased by 35.8% year-on-year to 18,000, while that of Macau residents purchasing outbound services through travel agencies plunged by 79.6% to 20,000. LV