Tourism slumping in Macau

Posted May 26th 2009 2:30PM by Beth Gaston Moon
Filed under: China, Recession

Las Vegas isn't the only gaming mecca struggling for numbers; Macau saw the number of visitor arrivals to its shores drop 3.5% in April to about 1.87 million.

For the first four months of the year, visitor arrivals by land have dropped 15.5% on a year-over-year basis, while arrivals by air are slumping as well, off 5.9% for the first third of 2009. Total visitor arrivals in 2009 are down 8.1% from the same time period last year.

The majority (48.1%) of visitors to this former Portuguese colony came from mainland China, though the number of Chinese visitors in April dropped 13.5%, too. (Macau is the only place in China where casinos are legal). A healthy percentage of visitors also came from Taiwan and Malaysia, though the sheer number of year-over-year visitors from these nations headed south as well.

On the plus side, visitor arrivals from Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore all increased. And Macau hotels, which see lots of day trips and fewer overnight stays than Las Vegas, have not yet had to resort to deep discounts in their room rates.

Beth works for The Options News Network (www.ONN.tv), which provides daily options commentary.

Tags: casinos, gambling, gaming, macau, tourism, travel