Macau tourism may be bleak until October

Two typhoons drove visitor arrivals down by 0.6%.

Visitor arrivals in Macau dipped by 0.6% in August and tourism may continue to be bleak until October, OCBC Investment Research said.

Two typhoons drove tourists away despite the effect of the summer holidays. There was a larger drop in same day visitors by 6.2%, whilst the increase in overnight visitors moderated to 4.8%.

The typhoons also caused hotels and travel agencies to suspend operations.

Meanwhile, the number of visitors from Mainland China increased by 1.9% whilst tourists from Hong Kong and Taiwan decreased by 10.5% and 1.9%, respectively.

"As September is normally considered the offseason month while the city was still struggling to recover from the typhoon’s destruction in early September, we believe that revival of the tourism sector will be rather moderate in September but may accelerate in October when Golden Week Holiday is set to bring more tourists back to the gambling hub," OCBC said.