Golden Week visitors up 8 percent

Saturday 8th of October 2016

Visitors to Asia’s gaming hub rose nearly 8 percent year-on-year during the first seven days of Golden Week.

“Premium mass and VIP are performing well, but grind mass has been soft.” added Wells Fargo on Friday while commenting on visitor growth during Golden Week.

Hotel rates were down nearly 50 percent during the week, added the brokerage, with new supply pressuring hotel rates.

“Surveyed rates during the first week of October are down 60 percent year-on-year at Sands China’s properties. New supply is clearly impacting pricing power. Sequentially, surveyed rates during Golden Week are only about 5-6 percent above the shoulder periods. Ordinarily, we’d expect rates to meaningfully increase, as Golden Week is one of the busiest weeks of the year and most important holiday periods. Over the past two years as the market has weakened, “compression periods” and major holidays have been relatively strong and become more important revenue drivers.”

Mainland arrivals over the last seven days totalled 969,254, according to the Macau Government Tourist Office.