Divergence between Macau visitor recovery and city’s casino GGR performance

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A Universidade de Macau (UM) reviu esta quinta-feira em baixa a previsão para o crescimento económico da região, em parte devido ao potencial impacto na confiança dos turistas chineses das tarifas impostas pelos Estados Unidos

O Centro de Estudos de Macau e o Departamento de Economia da UM preveem que o Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) do território suba 6,8%, menos 1,1 pontos percentuais do que na anterior previsão, feita em janeiro.

O coordenador do projeto e economista Kwan Fung disse que a revisão em baixa se deve ao declínio no consumo dos visitantes e às “tarifas norte-americanas sobre o mundo“, algo que “tem impacto indireto na economia de Macau”.

https://observador.pt/2025/04/10/universidade-reve-em-baixa-previsao-para-crescimento-economico-de-macau/?utm_campaign=immediate&utm_content=article&utm_medium=email&utm_source=observador_alerts

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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors to Macau dropped 4.4% year-on-year in February.

According to DSEC, the drop is mainly due to a relatively high comparison base resulting from the Spring Festival Golden Week falling entirely in February last year, while this year, the 8-day holiday was shared between January and February.

February accounted for some 3,147,184 visitors, almost half a million less than January this year (3,646,561), i.e., -13.69% month-to-month.

According to the same official statistics release, overnight visitors (1,259,358) dropped by 11.7% year-on-year, while same-day visitors (1,887,826) rose by 1.1%.

The average length of stay of visitors held steady year-on-year at 1.1 days, the same happening for the duration of stay for overnight visitors (2.2 days) and same-day visitors (0.3 days).

Despite the results of February alone, in the first two months of this year, 6,793,745 visitor arrivals were recorded, a 10.4% increase y-o-y.

Same-day visitors (4,043,105) grew significantly by 20.8%, while overnight visitors (2,750,640) dropped by 2%.

Cumulatively, visitors’ average length of stay shortened by 0.2 days year-on-year to 1 day in the first two months, with the duration of stay for overnight visitors (2.2 days) and same-day visitors (0.3 days) remaining unchanged.

DSEC said the decrease in the overall average length of stay was attributed to the year-on-year growth in the proportion of same-day visitors in the total number of visitors.

Mainland visitors on IVS dropping more

According to the DSEC report, visitors from the mainland decreased by 6.4% year-on-year to 2,291,662 in February, with those traveling under the Individual Visit Scheme (1,331,091) reduced even further by 11.1%.

Among the mainland visitors, 120,002 traveled under the “one trip per week measure,” 30,677 under the “multiple-entry measure,” and 9,262 under the “tourist group multi-entry measure.” Additionally, visitors from the nine Pearl River Delta cities in the Greater Bay Area fell by 3.2% year-on-year to 1,122,493.

In contrast, visitors from Taiwan (67,951) rose by 14.4% year-on-year, while those from Hong Kong (579,843) dropped by 4.7%.

International visitors are up by 18%

International visitors totaled 207,728 in February, up by 17.9% year-on-year. Southeast Asian markets, visitors from Indonesia (14,921), Malaysia (14,480), Thailand (11,261), and Singapore (6,762) rose by 19.6%, 18.1%, 25.5%, and 25.2% year-on-year, respectively, while those from the Philippines (38,847) decreased by 2.5%.

In the South Asian markets, visitors from India (4,093) remained stable year over year, while in the Northeast Asian markets, visitors from South Korea (59,330) and Japan (14,444) presented the most significant leaps, growing by 41.8% and 26.2%, respectively.

In the long-haul markets, the number of visitors from the USA (10,561) increased by 6.6% yearly.

Arrivals by sea drop by almost one-quarter

Statistics from DSEC also show that the number of visitors arriving by sea recorded a significant drop last month.

Analysis of data by checkpoint shows that the number of visitor arrivals by land (2,579,462; 82% of total), sea (334,443; 10.6%), and air (233,279; 7.4%) showed respective year-on-year decreases of 1.5%, 21.8%, and 6%

https://macaudailytimes.com.mo/visitors-in-free-fall-especially-from-the-mainland.html

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Two operators of large Macau shopping malls – casino firms Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd and Sands China Ltd – respectively saw their fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 net revenues from their Cotai mall businesses decline year-on-year. That is according to their latest annual financial results.

Mall net revenue at Galaxy Macau – Galaxy Entertainment’s flagship casino resort property in Cotai – amounted to HKD348 million (US$44.8 million) in the three months to December 31, a flat performance compared to the previous quarter. Galaxy Macau’s fourth-quarter mall net revenue saw a 4.4-percent year-on-year decline.

Galaxy Macau’s full-year 2024 mall net revenue was just above HKD1.39 billion, a decline of 10.8 percent from 2023’s HKD1.56 billion. Nonetheless, the 2024 mall net revenue figure of the Cotai property represented nearly 13.1-percent growth from the HKD1.23 billion reached in 2019, the trading year immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sands China’s mall business performance was detailed in the fourth-quarter and full-year results of its U.S.-based parent, Las Vegas Sands Corp. The main Sands China malls are at its Cotai properties, namely: The Venetian Macao; The Londoner Macao; the combined The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Macao; and The Parisian Macao.

Their aggregate fourth-quarter net revenue was US$136 million, up 8.8 percent from the prior quarter, but down by 12.8 percent from the same quarter in 2023, according to a GGRAsia review of the data.

Full-year 2024 net revenue from those Sands China malls was US$492 million, down by 3.9 percent from 2023’s US$512 million, and also down by nearly 7 percent from the US$529 million reached in 2019. In 2019, the-then Sands Cotai Central had not yet been revamped and rebranded as The Londoner Macao.

In 2024, the top contributors to Sands China’s mall revenue were The Venetian Macao and the combined mall at The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Macao. The Venetian Macao logged US$230 million, and the latter combo, US$158 million.

While the 2024-net revenue from mall business at The Venetian Macao edged up by 1.3 percent year-on-year, that from the combined mall at The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Macao was down by 15.5 percent from 2023.

Sands China best performer Four Seasons still down

The Shoppes at Four Seasons’ “tenant sales per square foot” – described by the group as the sum of reported comparable sales for the trailing 12 months, divided by the comparable square footage for the same period – remained the highest among all Sands China’s properties. However, the actual figure of full-year 2024 saw a decline from 2023, and 2019.

Tenant sales per square foot for The Shoppes at Four Seasons were US$5,379 in 2024, down by 29.2 percent from US$7,594 in 2023, and also down slightly – by 1.8 percent – from 2019’s US$5,478.

The “over 150” brands carried at The Shoppes at Four Seasons are at the luxury end of the retailing spectrum, as per Sands China’s marketing materials.

The other four Macau casino operators do not report mall performance as a distinct item in their financial results.

Data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service indicate that citywide, 2024’s per-capita visitor spending on shopping declined compared to 2023, and to 2019.

It was MOP2,387 (US$298) in 2024, down 7.3 percent from 2023’s MOP2,575, and also down 1.2 percent from 2019’s MOP2,415.

A separate survey by the statistics bureau – focused on citywide retail sales – shows that the fourth-quarter value of Macau retail sales grew sequentially by 11.6 percent to MOP18.51 billion. Judged year-on-year, however, fourth-quarter retail sales saw a 8.6-percent decline, led by decreases in sales value for the “watches, clocks and jewellery”, “leather goods” and “department stores” segments.

The fourth-quarter numbers took Macau’s aggregate value of retail sales in 2024 to MOP71.99 billion, a decline by nearly 15 percent year-on-year. The 2024 retail sales value though already corresponded to 93.3 percent of 2019-level, according to statistics bureau data.

https://www.ggrasia.com/galaxy-sands-saw-2024-cotai-mall-net-revenues-dip-y-o-y-amid-citywide-retail-biz-retreat?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=galaxy-sands-saw-2024-cotai-mall-net-revenues-dip-y-o-y-amid-citywide-retail-biz-retreat

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Further “upside” this year in Macau tourism arrivals from the Chinese mainland might “largely come” from mainland provinces “with lower GDP [gross domestic product] per capita” than the city’s core Chinese feeder markets, and so limit post pandemic recovery in gross gaming revenue (GGR).

That is according to a Tuesday note from CreditSights Inc.

The institution said Macau had seen so far this year “a faster recovery in visitor arrivals from Chinese provinces with higher GDP per capita (i.e., Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, etc.), which have already recovered… to pre-Covid levels.”

But the CreditSights team added it thought “any further visitation upside from mainland China would likely largely come from the other provinces with lower GDP per capita, which may constrain the recovery of GGR per visitor”.

Analysts Nicholas Chen and David Bussey also noted in their Tuesday memo a divergence in January between visitor volume – which went up circa 27 percent year-on-year, and casino GGR, which went down about 6 percent year-on-year.

They said factors probably included not only “softer tourist arrivals” during the first three days of China’s eight-day lunar new year holiday that started January 28, but a lower economic value to the city’s casinos of those that did come.

 “Lower premium mass”-level casino clients had been “possibly comprising a larger portion of casino visitors”. There might also have been “a larger number of non-casino visitors within the overall visitor mix in January”.

CreditSights stated: “The average GGR per visitor for January 2025 was lower by 26 percent year-on-year to MOP5,006 [about US$625]… though we note that this may have been skewed down by non-casino visitors during the month.”

The institution qualified that by observing that the Macau authorities “only disclose non-gaming spending per capita, and the GGR per visitor (total GGR over total visitor arrivals) is only a proxy figure for gaming spending per capita”.

Earlier this month, a Macau junket veteran had told GGRAsia that the “weak Chinese economy” had “really eaten into” what mainland VIP junket business remained in the Macau market.

In 2024 Shanghai, one of China’s main commercial centres, had been number two – the second consecutive year of such a ranking – in Macau’s table of mainland-China visitors using any form of China exit visa.

Last year Guangdong province – next door to Macau and the perennial key mainland market – followed by Shanghai city and Zhejiang province, were in descending order the top three mainland source markets, showed GGRAsia’s recent review of data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service.

Independent travellers to Macau under China’s Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) exit visa system are typically of higher value to Macau’s tourism sector than tour-group visitors, investment analysts have commonly noted.

It has previously been stated by investment analysts and marketing professionals that a factor in eligibility to join the IVS scheme is a mainland community’s standing in an unofficial ‘tier’ system of economic development.

Qingdao and Xi’an were added to China’s IVS system with effect from March 6 last year. Eight other cities – in distant Chinese provinces or regions – were added with effect from May 27 last year.

https://www.ggrasia.com/divergence-between-macau-visitor-recovery-and-citys-casino-ggr-performance-might-persist-this-year-creditsights