Despite a strong last four days, a report by Morgan Stanley considers that daily gross gaming revenues registered in Macau during this year’s Golden Week holiday period were ‘weaker than expected’ with an increase of ‘only 9 per cent year-on-year’ in gross gaming revenue, to reach MOP1.06 billion (US$131.87 million).
Gaming revenue results registered during the eight-day holiday period were lower than the MOP1.26 billion registered during this year’s five-day Chinese New Year holidays.
The report justified the lower than expected result of the Mid-Autumn period this year coinciding with the Golden Week period of October 1 to October 8, and with the same period of last year having seen the opening of The Parisian Macao and Wynn Palace.
Although Chinese visitation to Macau decreased by 5 per cent yearly in the first four days of the holiday period, visitation rebounded by 36 per cent year-on-year in the remaining four days.
Morgan Stanley analysts consider the overall 11 per cent yearly increase in visitation ‘impressive’ but referred to the gaming revenue single digit increase as ‘concerning’.
Despite the results, the report estimates gross gaming revenue in the last quarter of the year will see a yearly growth of 16 per cent, with full-year results increasing 18 per cent year-on-year.
However, a recent ‘slowdown in VIP’ yearly growth created by a high base comparison and a ‘macro/liquidity slowdown’ together with a potential premium mass slowdown could impact estimated growth.
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Big spending neighbours
Meanwhile, the number of visitors registered in the neighbouring city of Zhuhai during the eight-day holiday period went up by 5.6 per cent yearly to 2.37 million, with the amount spent by visitors rising 2.1 per cent year-on-year to RMB1.3 billion, reports the Zhuhai Government online portal.
The majority of visitors originated from cities in the Pearl River Delta and along high-speed rail routes, with 564,700 visitors staying overnight in the city.
According to the report more than half of all tourist revenue in the city was generated by visitation to five major tourism attractions; namely, Haibin Park, City Parlour, New Yuanming Palace – including the Lost City Water Park, Xianglu Bay – and Zhuhai Hengqin Chimelong International Ocean Tourist Resort.
