The average daily hotel occupancy rate in Macau increased by 6.6% year-on-year last month to hit 91.6% while the median price for a three-star to five-star room declined by 9.8% to stand at around $150 per night.

According to a report from the Macau Business Daily newspaper citing official figures from the Macau Government Tourist Office, the November average daily hotel occupancy percentage represented a 3.5% rise month-on-month with three-star hotels recording the highest rate of 96.5%, which was 6.3% better when compared with the same period last year.

For four-star hotels in the former Portuguese enclave, the newspaper reported that the average daily hotel occupancy rate for November stood at 93%, which was a boost of 5.2% year-on-year, while five-star properties saw their figure swell by 7.4% to stand at 90.1%.

The Macau Business Daily reported that the latest figure brought the average daily hotel occupancy rate for the year to the end of November to 84.7%, which is an improvement of 1.6% year-on-year, while typical prices have dropped by around 13% since the start of 2017.

The newspaper explained that the figures were derived from information provided by 42 hotels and the Macau Hotel Association and brought the average price for a one-night stay in a three-star facility to just over $105, which is a 17.7% decrease year-on-year.

Andy Wu Keng Kuong, President for the Macau Travel Industry Council, told the Macau Business Daily that hotel occupancy rates are expected to stay at around 80% over the coming Christmas holidays, which is more or less unchanged since 2015 even though the city now offers around 4,700 more rooms thanks to the recent openings of The Parisian Macao and Wynn Palace Cotai.

As Christmas is not an official holiday in China, Wu furthermore predicted that the majority of tourists travelling to Macau over the festive period are set to be from the former British colony of Hong Kong or abroad with the number of visitors from the mainland remaining relatively static.

In related news, a report from brokerage Sanford C Bernstein Limited has reportedly explained that Macau casino operators will need to create more room capacity in order to overcome possible future “bottlenecks” that could be caused by higher demand at weekends and public holidays.

The London-based firm reportedly told GGRAsia that the majority of weekend rooms are now being filled by mass-market players while Macau’s traditional VIP gambling market accounts for most week day stays.

“While in 2012 to 2014 the week day business was dominated by junket business with largely day-tripper mass mixed in, weekend business was all the people coming on vacation, premium mass and VIP players,” read the report from analysts Vitaly Umansky, Zhen Gong and Yang Xie. “Currently, almost all the mass [market] recovery has come from play on weekends and holidays. Operators will need more hotel capacity and at some point in the future [more] gaming capacity.”

The Macau Statistics And Census Service revealed last month that the city offered some 36,200 hotel rooms of all types as of the end of October, which was a 14.6% escalation when compared with the same period in 2015.