Macau Casino Market Expected To Have A Less Activity During Chinese New Year

Macau’s casino industry experiences a significant uptick in gross gaming revenues (GGR) during the Chinese New Year (CNY) celebration. CNY generally takes place in early Feb when China shutsdown for close to two weeks in celebration of the New Year.

Millions of Chinese from the Mainland leave their workplaces and travel to visit their families all over China. Macau which is an hour away by ferry from Guangzhou and Hong Kong sees a huge influx of Chinese tourists during this period who flock to the casinos to see if they will get lucky during CNY.

Macau’s casinos suffered massive financial losses due to the COVID-19 virus in 2020. The casino industry is trying to recover but given the fact that the coronavirus is still not under control, progress has been minimal.

Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd has warned that Macau will not see the usual number of tourists arriving during CNY. Casinos will not witness the same amount of visitors not the usual table spend that they are used to during CNY.

This was confirmed by the Macao Government Tourism Office who said they expected the average number of Chinese visitors to Macau to be lesser than the average number that showed up during the Christmas holidays in 2020.

This is to be expected as a number of state governments in China have issued travel advisory warnings informing locals to limit their travel during CNY and limit the risk of COVID-19.

Macau Casinos Face More Challenges

Sanford C. Bernstein stated that GGR for Macau’s casinos on a daily basis in January 2021 was around $21.4 million. This was a 71 percent decline when compared to Jan 2020 and a 32 percent decline when compared to December 2020.

Analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein claimed that GGR during Jan 18 to 24 was the lowest GGR recorded since the first week after Golden Week in October 2020. The VIP GGR has dropped by 10 percent when compared to month on month revenues while mass gaming revenues dropped by 5 percent when compared to month on month.

Macau’s casinos are going to continue to struggle into 2021 until COVID-19 is addressed properly. Whether a COVID-19 vaccine will be enough to convince Chinese players that it is okay to travel to Macau remains to be seen.