Survey suggests Macau visits are being postponed until next year

Mainland visitors appear to be postponing their Macau travel plans by as much as 12 months, according to a survey conducted by a research unit of Morgan Stanley, as entry restriction measures on both sides of the SAR border show no signs of easing.
The survey asked more than 2,000 mainland respondents from urban locations across the country about their willingness to travel to Macau during the upcoming Labor Day holiday on May 1. The respondents were described as representative of China’s “urban” and “more affluent” demographic.
Conducted by AlphaWise, the results showed that travel plans were being postponed in some cases by 12 months or more. Approximately 43% of respondents would not travel to Macau in the short-term, while 44% had no plans to visit the city at all. Just 7% would attempt to travel to Macau next month.
The number of visitors to Macau has dramatically fallen since the local government introduced border restrictions in late January to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
As of last month, neighboring Guangdong Province is enforcing a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all arrivals, including its own residents. Mainland visitors typically account for about two-thirds of Macau’s monthly arrivals, with about half of those hailing from Guangdong Province.
In February, visitor arrivals plunged 95% in year-on-year terms to just 156,000. In the same month, casinos grappled with a 15-day government-ordered shutdown and gross gaming revenue for the city dropped by 87.8% to 3.1 billion patacas. DB