The average occupancy rate of the 115 hotels and bed and breakfasts operating in Macau in February 2020 offering 37,000 rooms reached just 15.0%, a decline of 76.9 percentage points year-on-year, the region’s Statistics and Census Bureau said.

This decline was due to a substantial decrease in the number of visitors, due to the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic.

The Bureau stressed that the average occupancy rate of 5-star hotels (10.0%) fell sharply by 84.0 percentage points.

The average occupancy rates of 2-star hotels (36.9%) and bed and breakfasts (43.3%) fell by 33.8 and 22.3 percentage points, respectively, and these declines were relatively low, mainly because some guest rooms were made available for lodging non-resident workers.

In February of this year hotels and bed and breakfasts accommodated just 157,000, 85.4% less on year and the number of guests from different countries/territories recorded a drop of 80% or more.

In the first two months of 2020 the average occupancy of rooms was 50.3%, decreasing by 42.1 percentage points compared with the same period of the previous year.

Hotels and bed and breakfasts hosted 1.23 million people, 46.4% less, compared with the same period of 2019 and the average stay by guests was 1.6 nights, or 0.1 nights more. (macauhub)