The Chinese New Year celebrations are a special time of the year as they provide both the people celebrating and the businesses in the region with quite the experience involving many festivities. Macao Government Tourism Office reported the information that this year has brought more people ready to celebrate in the gambling hub of Macau than there were last year over the same time period. This increase resulted in bigger revenue for the gambling operators as well, which will become clear in the next gross gaming revenue report published.
It is not a secret to anyone that mainland China residents like to make their ways to the Special Administrative Region which provides them with a wide range of entertainment offerings and gambling locations to choose from. This year was not an exception and thousands of tourists arrived in the gambling hub on 15th February to make the most of the period of festivities. According to the authority which oversees the sector in Macau, there has been a 10-percent surge in the number of people who have chosen this destination for their Lunar New Year celebrations.
This amount is compared to the number of tourists who had picked this location for the celebrations last year. This year the Chinese New Year took place on 16th February and this gave the visitors the time to make the best of the long weekend which they had. The total number of people who participated in the celebrations reached as many as 500,404 and provided a busy end of the week for the casino operators in the region. From this number of people, some 70.8 percent came straight from mainland China, which confirmed the prognosis of experts that this will be the main source of tourists.
Predictions and Impact on the Industry
In comparison to the way the area performed in 2017, there was an 18.5-percent jump in the number of mainland China tourist arrivals over this Lunar New Year. It is safe to say that the Year of the Dog started with a potential profit bang and higher interest towards the biggest gambling hub in the world. What should be taken into account, however, is that the bigger part of the revenue comes from VIP players who participate in gambling activities in the area, and the bigger number of tourists might not have equally as big an impact on the gambling revenue.
According to the forecasts issued last week by MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, the expected growth of visitors in Macau amounted to 3 percent in comparison to the overall number of tourists during last year’s celebrations. She also stated that most of the people will come from mainland China, Hong Kong, adding to that prediction Taiwan as well. In the weeks leading up to the festivities, there have been preparation works on the newest gambling resort called MGM Cotai, which has been in the works for quite some time now. It launched several days prior to the 16th, resulting in some 500 additional hotel rooms available for booking by tourists.
