Operator News

China – COVID-outbreak in Fujian to derail Macau’s recovery again

With Macau’s casino operators eyeing the profitable October Golden Week holiday, a breakout of COVID-19 infections in the province of Fujian on mainland China is threatening to curb any growth in gaming revenues.

Following an outbreak in Nanjing in August, which resulted in the lowest monthly total in a year, gaming revenues have rapidly climbed back with a 74 per cent growth in the first five days of September. The Fujian outbreak, close to Guangdong province, is likely to stall that recovery again.

Sanford C. Bernstein’s Vitaly Umansky, Louis Li and Kelsey Zhu said: “Travel impediments to Macau travel are still in place, as Macau still has quarantine requirement on five cities of four Chinese provinces with two cities of Fujian province added over the weekend. Visitation from 2 to 6 September averaged 44.2k, up 63 per cent from August’s average of 27k (but still down 12% from July average of 50.4k). A new outbreak in Fujian may hinder the recent recovery trajectory if contagion spreads to the rest of the country and travel restrictions in China are raised again. Assuming no new travel restrictions, we expect visitation to Macau to start getting back to April/May levels by October.”