Hotel occupancy rises 4% year-on-year in February

[Photo; Renato Marques]

Hotel occupancy in Macau reached 94.6% last month, according to information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

The figure represents a 4-percentage-point increase compared with the same month last year.
This is likely related to the fact that this year’s Chinese New Year (CNY) holidays fell entirely in February, unlike last year, when the first three days of the new year were still in January.
According to DSEC statistics, occupancy rates vary significantly by hotel unit category, with the highest rate recorded for 5-star units (96.5%).

In the 4-star hotels, the occupancy was 93.7%, and further reduced to 90.9% in the 3-star hotels.
Still, it was in the 4-star units where the increase in occupancy was most pronounced, with a year-on-year increase of 8.6%. This happened while 5-star units grew 2.8% and 3-star units 3.6%.

In total, the number of guests at hotel establishments increased by 10.1% year-on-year to 1,226,000 in February, with the majority (955,000) from the mainland (up 11.8%).
The second-largest group (124,000) was guests from Hong Kong, which recorded a 6.6% increase year-on-year.

Meanwhile, international guests (81,000) dropped by 5.7% year-on-year. Among them, those from Japan (5,000) decreased by 32.5%, while those from South Korea (30,000) and Thailand (6,000) increased by 1.3% and 0.6%, respectively.

First two months draw a clearer picture
Without the effects of the date difference between the CNY holidays in 2025 and 2026, we can observe that the average guest room occupancy rate in hotel establishments was 93.1% in the first two months of this year, up 2.4% year-on-year.
The number of guests increased by 4.5% year-on-year to 2,477,000, of which international guests (210,000) rose by 12.9%.

Fewer mainland tour groups

In February, the number of inbound package tour visitors totaled 134,000, down 8.6% year-on-year as more mainland visitors traveled to Macau under the Individual Visit Scheme, DSEC said, adding that the number of inbound package tour visitors from the mainland fell by 10% to 112,000.

Analysis of the first two months of the year shows that a total of 272,000 inbound package tour visitors were recorded, down 11.3% year-over-year. This decline is attributed solely to mainland visitors, as international tour visitors increased by 14.9% to 42,000 during the same period.