Golden Week Covid Outbreaks Slow Recovery

The number of Adelaide hotel rooms filled in one night hit a new high last month. On September 27, World Tourism Day, there were 9,001 CBD hotel rooms occupied of the total 9,911 available. This broke the previous record of 8,967 rooms occupied, reached the week prior. Nightly occupancy hit its highest since the start of the pandemic at 91%. A combined 5,000 visitors to the CBD were brought in by a combination of major events and conferences taking place. The week ending October 1 saw average occupancy of 84%, the best weekly average since the start of the pandemic.

While Golden Week was a bit tarnished for hoteliers in China, it created a breeding ground for Covid cases and that was not a disappointment. China had urged their residents not to travel or get together during the holidays to stop the spread of Covid but that clearly did not happen. Chinese health authorities reported 1,900 confirmed cases on October 9, a three-fold increase over 548 new cases on October 1. October 9 had 1,900 more cases than the Chinese government is trying to accomplish.

For Macau, this also means new quarantine and other measures, bringing down the mood after there were 163,000 mainland visitors entering the city during the seven days of Golden Week. The casino revenue did not keep pace with the increase in visitation but it is a different crowd and it is a crowd that comes to Macau for other reasons than gambling. The total number of visitors for the week was