Macao's hotel sector revenue up by 14.5 pct in 2018

The revenue of Macao's hotels and similar establishments grew by 14.5 percent year-on-year to 37.29 billion patacas (about 4.63 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, attributable to an increase in guest numbers, the special administrative region's statistic service said here on Friday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed that the revenue of five-star hotels surged by 18.6 percent to 29.04 billion patacas (about 3.60 billion dollars) and accounted for 78.0 percent of hotels revenue in 2018.

The revenue of four-star hotels also went up by 5.2 percent to 4.39 billion patacas (about 544.67 million dollars).

However, receipts of three-star and two-star hotels dropped by 2.0 percent to 3.78 billion patacas (about 468.98 million dollars) as a result of a 13.8 percent decrease in receipts from rentals of space.

As regards non-operating revenue of these hotels, insurance claims escalated by 193.9 percent to 384 million patacas (about 48 million dollars) as a consequence of the compensation for damages caused by the catastrophic typhoon in 2017.

Gross value added that measures the sectoral contribution to the economy added up to 19.82 billion patacas (about 2.46 billion dollars), an increase of 19.5 percent year-on-year. Average value added per person engaged grew by 15.2 percent to about 370,000 patacas (about 45,905 dollars).

As the growth in revenue exceeded that in expenditure, gross surplus of the sector soared by 51.0 percent to 5.43 billion patacas (about 673.70 million dollars), the highest record since the launch of this survey.

Moreover, due to the completion of new hotels as well as the acquisition of machinery and other equipment by some hotels, gross fixed capital formation of the sector leaped by 228.5 percent year-on-year to 28.35 billion patacas (about 3.52 billion dollars).