In Macau and a senior official with the enclave’s tourism ministry has reportedly predicted that local hotel occupancy rates during next month’s five-day Labour Day public holiday could reach as high as 80%.

According to a Tuesday report from GGRAsia, Cheng Wai Tong serves as the Deputy Director for the Macao Government Tourism Office and he made the optimistic forecast based on the latest booking information from the city’s vast array of hotels including those tied to local casino resorts. The official purportedly also proclaimed that such an outcome from May 1 would represent the best result for the city since the start over 15 months ago of a downturn tied to the coronavirus pandemic.

Important incentive:

However, the source reported that this estimate seems to run counter to an earlier calculation from one of Cheng’s unnamed associates that hotels in Macau would only be approximately 40% full over the Labour Day holiday period. But this guess purportedly came before local residents began being offered incentives to stay in one of the city’s many hotels as part of a so-called ‘staycation’ scheme aimed at keeping the domestic hospitality sector healthy and viable.

Quickening quantities:

Cheng reportedly later went even further to proclaim that he believes Macau will see average daily visitor volumes for the Labour Day period that exceed those for April 16 when the tally surpassed 34,000 day-trippers. This Friday result had purportedly represented the best since February and came as just one more sign that the city is continuing its long recovery from last year’s coronavirus-related slump.

Aerial amplification:

In a subsequent report on the matter and Inside Asian Gaming disclosed that a number of airlines servicing Macau are planning to increase the frequency of their flights during the Labour Day period. This source cited information from local brokerage and investments firm Morgan Stanley Asia Limited in asserting that flights to the former Portuguese enclave from Shanghai are expected to hit 61% of their volume for 2019 as opposed with last year’s 46% mark with services from Beijing topping 64% of their levels from two year ago.

Significant source:

The analysis from Morgan Stanley Asia Limited reportedly furthermore forecast that in the region of 10% of the aggregated gross gaming revenues earned from VIP and premium-mass casino players comes from these airborne travellers. Further highlighting the importance of Macau International Airport and the brokerage purportedly disclosed that around 9% of the Chinese visitors into the city in 2019 had arrived by air, which equated to 6,600 people every day for an annual tally that sat north of 2.4 million.