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

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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