Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar, and prime time for travel to Macau.
The week-long festival typically bodes well for city casinos, as punters travel en masse to the only place in China where gambling is legal.
This year, results for the week-long national holiday were below expectations. But a revenue bump followed CNY, the official start of the Year of the Snake.
In a 10 February note, Jefferies Group analysts said holiday weakness should give way to “neutral to modestly positive” returns” as the quarter progresses.
“The trend post-CNY was slightly better than the actual CNY performance,” the Jefferies team wrote, with daily revenue of MOP822M through 9 February.
“Post-CNY (6-9 Feb) ADR was MOP725M/day,” they wrote. “This is higher than 2024 Post CNY week’s MOP544M/day (19-29 Feb), as high rollers appeared to stay beyond the holiday period.” Mass and VIP GGR were up month-on-month by 35-40% and 42-47% respectively, they added.
In 2024, visitation up, GGR down
Last year, record visitation kicked off the Year of the Dragon, exceeding 2019 figures by 3.7%, according to the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
But gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the period was MOP18.46 billion (£806 billion/€966.2 billion/$2.29 billion), “a tad lighter” than the consensus of MOP19-20 billion, said JP Morgan analysts. A Bloomberg report attributed the 2024 results to a “cautious spending outlook among tourists.”
However, March 2024 saw the start of an uptick. GGR rose 5.5% month-on-month to slightly more than MOP19.50 billion.
Analysts: Recovery should continue
Likewise this year, Jefferies expects “the recovery to continue going forward”, with projected GGR of MOP18.4-19.4 billion for the month, versus MOP18.5 billion in February 2024, during a leap year.
According to Macau Business, JP Morgan analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi, and Selina Li observed “post-LNY GGR (that was) be better-than-feared at MOP725 million/day thanks to solid ‘tail-end’ demand, somewhat offsetting the weakness from LNY.”
The JP Morgan analysts project monthly GGR of MOP18.3 billion to MOP19.4 billion.
Meanwhile, the Macau government has forecast full-year GGR of MOP240 billion, up 11% year-on-year.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/casino/integrated-resorts/macau-pulls-out-of-cny-slump/
