90% Drop In Macau Visitors Expected For 2020

The world’s largest gambling hub Macau could suffer a 90% drop in visitor numbers for 2020 according to the Director of the Macao Government Tourism Office Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes.

With the COVID-19 pandemic still affecting the entire planet Macau will not relax its restrictions on tourists says the Director for tourism.

At an event on Monday she said: “We estimated that… compared with last year, the decline for this year should be over 90%.”

Already for the 8 months of 2020 Macau has seen a fall of 87% in visitors to the tiny gambling enclave with just 3.57 million people entering Macau, with the recent Golden Week showing that those figures were constant and unlikely to rise for the final months of the year.

With those numbers comes the revenues which for the first nine months of the year stand at $4.8 billion a massive drop of 82.5% from the same period last year.

At present any mainland visitors from China must have a COVID-19 free certificate proving they are free from the virus and issued within seven days of travel. In Hong Kong that restriction on proof of free from COVID is reduced to 24 hours.

Those restrictions along with tourists from outside the region along with the major disruption to flights is impacting hugely on Macau’s ability to bounce back from slumping revenues and visitors for the year.

However Macau is not alone with Nevada suffering similar numbers in revenues and visitors for the year.