Casinos in Macau reached an all-time low in June as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gamblers from all over the world are still afraid to travel to the Asian gambling capital, which resulted in some devastating numbers.
Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) recently released figures for June that show that the generated revenue for the previous month was $89.7 million (MOP716 million). Compared to the same period last year, there’s a huge decline of 97%. This is the ninth month in a row that Macau reported a revenue decline.
June was even worse compared to May when people were more eager to travel to Macau. The reported revenue for May is MOP1.76 billion.
Moreover, the revenue in June was even worse compared to April. The year-to-date revenue decline in the Gambling Mecca is 77.4%, as the gaming industry in the area reported revenue of $4.2 billion for that period (MOP33.7 billion).
Macau in Chaos Due to Coronavirus
Macau has been struggling for some time now, as China was the first country to be hit hard by the COVID-19 disease. All festivals were canceled, and the casinos had to go on a two-week-long shutdown in February.
They are unable to recover since that. Since then, China has been quarantining cities and provinces to prevent the further spread of the virus, and this also includes cities such as Hong Kong and provinces such as Guangdong. Therefore, many high rollers were unable to go to Macau.
High rollers are actually a very important part of Macau as they make up a huge part of the revenue that the area makes.
Although visitors to Macau are not required to self-isolate for 14 days anymore, they need to do so if they return from Macau to Hong Kong. So, many people from this city simply decided not to go to Macau while the self-quarantine rule is active.
Hospitality Stats
There are still no official stats for June when it comes to the hospitality industry, but DSEC (Macau’s Statistics and Service Bureau) stated that approximately 116,000 guests were admitted to hotels during the previous month. Therefore, it’s safe to conclude that hotels are also experiencing a huge decline, as this is 89.9% less compared to June 2019.
The average occupancy rate for June last year was 77.8%, but this number is now down to just 12.3%.
Things are not looking good for Macau at the moment as the government is now encouraging casino licensees to let go of staff, and this means that the local economy will suffer even more. The government plans to impose the so-called “austerity measures” on social services and cut the annual budget by 10%.
It’s going to take a lot of time for the economy in Macau to recover. If all of this happened to Macau for being closed just for two weeks, one cannot help but wonder what the future of Las Vegas would be.
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