The average occupancy rate of local hotels rebounded by 2.9 percentage points year-on-year to 83.6 per cent for June, which is the first year-on-year growth recorded after a continuous decrease of nearly one and a half years, the latest data released yesterday by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) reveals.
Last month, the city’s average hotel occupancy, compared to 81.3 per cent registered in May, also jumped 2.3 percentage points, driven by hotels in the 3 to 5-star range all registering growth in occupancy for the month.
The data released by the tourism office was gathered from the Macau Hotel Association that includes some 40 hotels in the 3-star to 5-star range.
The previous time that the local hotel industry saw year-on-year growth in its occupancy rate, based on the same data source, was in November 2014 when an increase of 0.04 percentage points – to 93.5 per cent – was posted.
3-stars shining
According to yesterday’s data, the occupancy rate of 5-star hotels increased by 3.4 percentage points year-on-year to 81.9 per cent in June, while that of 4-star hotels and 3-star hotels jumped by 5.7 percentage points and 7.4 percentage points to 84.9 per cent and 90.1 per cent, respectively, compared to the same month of 2015.
For the first half of this year the average occupancy rate of local hotels fell by 1.4 percentage points year-on-year to 80.5 per cent, dragged down by a year-on-year drop of 2.8 percentage points in the occupancy of 5-star hotels to 78.7 per cent.
However, the average occupancy rate of 4-star hotels averagely grew by 1.2 percentage points year-on-year to 81.8 per cent, while that of 3-star hotels rose by 1.3 percentage points to 87.3 per cent for the first six months of the year.
Room rates fall
In terms of room rates, the average cost for a hotel room in the Special Administrative Region amounted to MOP1,263 (US$158.1) per night in June, a drop of 7.9 per cent year-on-year.
Both 4-star hotels and 3-star hotels saw their average room rates cut by more than 10 per cent year-on-year, respectively, amounting to MOP696 and MOP790 per night, while that of 5-star hotels was down by 4.6 per cent year-on-year to MOP1,645 per night.
For the first six months of the year average room rates in the territory decreased 14.3 per cent year-on-year to MOP1,325 per night on average.
Meanwhile, 4-star hotels’ average prices registered the most notable decline, down 17.9 per cent year-on-year to some MOP774 per night during the six months, while room rates for 3-star hotels fell by 17 per cent year-on-year to MOP877 for one night.
Meanwhile, the average room rates for 5-star hotels dropped 12.3 per cent year-on-year during the first half, to MOP1,690 per night.
