Macau casino operators get a boost from improving visitor numbers
Gaming revenue was down 34 per cent last year
As Macau’s casino operators close the books on a disappointing 2015, new year optimism is mounting as visitor numbers increase and the year-on-year gaming revenue gap shrinks.
Mainland Chinese visitor arrivals during the Lunar New Year break were up 4.3 per cent over the corresponding week last year, the Macau Government Tourist Office said on Monday.
But the average daily revenue of HK$790 million was 20 per cent less than a year ago, according to Nomura gaming analyst Richard Huang, with high rollers staying away amid the mainland’s economic troubles and corruption crackdown.
“The growing number of tourists as well as high hotel occupancy rate don’t directly lead to the improvement of gambling revenue, as the visitation growth is mainly driven by tourists with weaker spending power,” Huang said.
Still, the result was slightly better than forecast and led Nomura to predict full-month revenues would drop 6 per cent to 10 per cent year on year to between HK$16.3 billion and HK$17 billion.
Macau’s gaming revenue has fallen for 20 straight months, and was down 34 per cent last year, with casino operators’ stock prices taking a hammering.
I think it is already pretty clear that Macau has hit a solid bottom
