Premium guests, not crowds, will define Macau’s next chapter, says scholar (Macau’s post-pandemic recovery)
may26
The penthouse is full; the lobby is half-empty. Macau’s post-pandemic recovery may look healthy on paper, but a gaming scholar says the real momentum is increasingly concentrated at the top end of the market, where VIP and premium players are outpacing the broader mass segment. The takeaway for operators: fewer guests can still mean bigger business if the spending power is there: Premium gaming and experiential tourism emerge as key growth drivers for Macau’s post-pandemic recovery.
Asia’s gaming and integrated resort sector has recovered from the pandemic, but recovery alone is no longer enough to secure its future, Zhonglu Zeng, President of the Asia-Pacific Association for Gambling Studies, told delegates at the G2E Asia + Asian IR Expo 2026 in Macau.
Speaking on market trends and the outlook for the IR and tourism industry, Zeng argued that the post-pandemic rebound has masked a deep bifurcation between the premium and mass segments — a structural shift that operators across the region can no longer afford to overlook. The headline numbers, he warned, are hiding the real story.
The data presented is striking. Macau’s gaming revenue reached MOP247.4 billion ($30.7 billion) in 2025, up 9.1 percent year-on-year, with visitor arrivals climbing to 102 percent of 2019 levels. But beneath those aggregate figures, the recovery is anything but uniform.
Mass market gaming grew just 4 percent in 2025 and 7 percent in the first quarter of 2026. The VIP segment, by contrast, surged 24 percent in 2025 and accelerated to 35 percent growth in 1Q26. According to Zeng’s analysis, 64 percent of Macau’s net revenue gain last year came from VIP rooms alone. Even within the mass market, he noted, operators including Sands China, Melco Resorts and MGM China have confirmed that it is the premium tier driving growth and profit, while per capita spending at the lower end remains sluggish.
The pattern is not unique to Macau. In Singapore, Marina Bay Sands‘ VIP revenue grew 36.3 percent in 2025 compared with 2024, while mass market revenue grew only 16.5 percent over the same period. In Cambodia, NagaWorld‘s VIP segment expanded 57 percent year-on-year, premium mass rose 32 percent, and general mass market grew just 23 percent — the same skew toward the top of the market.
Zeng linked the trend to broader luxury consumption dynamics, citing BCG data showing that the top 0.1 percent of luxury consumers globally now drive 23 percent of total luxury sales — nearly double their 12 percent share in 2013. Aspirational, entry-level luxury buyers, once the backbone of the market, have seen their share slip from 74 percent to 61 percent over the same period.
“The path forward isn’t about volume,” Zeng said. “It’s about deepening relationships with premium guests through bespoke service, recognition, and seamless experiences.”
What high-value guests actually want, he added, citing Hurun’s 2025 HNWI research, is “not mass push notifications, but one-to-one connection. Not crowded experiences, but exclusive, private spaces. Not generic service, but service excellence and identity recognition.”
The shift to experiential tourism
Running parallel to the premium-customer trend is what Zeng described as the mainstreaming of experiential tourism. Today’s travelers, he said, “don’t just want to see a destination; they aspire to feel it, understand it, and remember it vividly.”
He identified three elements visitors increasingly seek — learning, enjoyment, and escape — and argued that Macau’s integrated resorts hold significant, underutilized assets to deliver all three. He pointed to a 300-year-old French royal tapestry at Wynn Macau, a Salvador Dalí bronze sculpture at MGM Macau, a Qing Dynasty imperial carpet at MGM Cotai, Zaha Hadid’s free-form exoskeleton design at Morpheus, and the Portuguese azulejo tile murals at Grand Lisboa Palace.
“Yet too often, these treasures go unnoticed. The tapestry is walked past. The Dalí sculpture is unrecognized. The Morpheus is admired — but not understood,” Zeng told the audience. “Because there is no effective introduction. No interpretation. No story. No depth.”
The remedy, he suggested, lies in interpretation rather than new construction: signage, guidebooks, brochures, and properly trained staff who function as cultural interpreters rather than information desks. The return on investment, he argued, comes through deeper engagement, longer stays, and higher non-gaming spend.
Other forces also at play
Zeng briefly addressed two further trends shaping demand: the rise of the silver economy and the emergence of health as what he termed the “new luxury.”
On the silver economy, he noted that more than 50 percent of Hong Kong arrivals to Macau in 2025 were aged 55 or older, with the figure reaching 51.3 percent in 1Q26. Mainland China is home to 310 million people aged 60 or above — 22 percent of the population — and their annual consumption could reach RMB 15.5 trillion ($2.28 trillion) by 2030, or nearly 11 percent of GDP.
Affluent seniors in particular retain 75 percent of their pre-retirement income, far above the national pension replacement rate of 42.6 percent, giving them both the means and the time to travel. By the end of 2025, Zeng said, more than 100 million active senior travelers will fuel a tourism market worth over RMB 1 trillion ($146.8 billion).
On wellness, he pointed to BCG data showing that while middle-class luxury spending fell 35 percent in 2024, health-related expenditure rose 13 percent, and 65 percent of HNWIs now rank health as their top life priority — ahead of happiness or wealth. In Mainland China, sports and wellness retail grew 15.7 percent in 2025, compared with just 3.7 percent for general consumer goods.
For IR operators, Zeng argued, the implication is that wellness can no longer be treated as an add-on but must be woven into every guest touchpoint, from food and beverage to room design.
https://agbrief.com/intel/deep-dive/18/05/2026/premium-guests-not-crowds-will-define-macaus-next-chapter-says-scholar/?utm_source=Asia+Gaming+Brief&utm_campaign=065d0fba61-AGB%3A+%2302387+Tuesday%2C+19th+May%2C+2026&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_51950b5d21-065d0fba61-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&ct=t%28AGB%3A+%2302387+Tuesday%2C+19th+May%2C+2026%29&goal=0_51950b5d21-065d0fba61-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=065d0fba61&mc_eid=31e20475e6
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