DATA SPOTLIGHT: Macau

28 October, 2020

This year the Corporate Travel Community (CTC) will feature some of the leading airlines, airports and country markets for air travel. Here, using the extensive profile insights available to CAPA - Centre for Aviation members to deliver a data snapshot at where they sit today in the Covid-19 impacted world, we look at Macau, where visitor arrivals remain significantly down, but there are some bright shoots for the final two months of the year.

When China sneezes, Macau certainly catches a cold. With international travel still significantly restricted in and out of China that has been just the case with COVID-19 with seven in ten arrivals into the administrative region each year coming from China.

Latest data from Macau's Statistics and Census Service for Sep-2020 shows visitor arrivals down -83.8% year-on-year with -78.6%, -94.1%; and -96.0% across the three main source markets of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The National Day holidays at the start of Oct-2020 did see a boost in numbers, but no significant change in trend, in fact across the first eight days of the month arrivals were down -86.0% on the same period in 2019.

However, there does appear to be some light. Trip.com chairman and co founder James Liang stated recently that searches for Macau tourism related products "skyrocketed" 500% in Sep-2020, when Macau resumed issuing individual visas for residents of mainland China, while Macau hotel bookings increased sevenfold from 22-Sep-2020 on the Qunar.com platform. Mr Liang forecasts that Macau tourism will recover by 80%-90% by Nov-2020 or Dec-2020 with Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Xiamen the top departure cities for Chinese travellers visiting Macau.

AIRPORTS IN THE COUNTRY

ANNUAL VISITOR ARRIVALS (2010 - 2020YTD)

VISITOR ARRIVALS BY MARKET (2019)

MONTHLY VISITOR ARRIVALS AND SEASONALITY IN DEMAND (2015 - 2020)

SCHEDULE MOVEMENT SUMMARY (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

ANNUAL CAPACITY (2012 - 2021*)NOTE:*the values for this year are at least partly predictive up to six months and may be subject to change.

WEEKLY INTERNATIONAL CAPACITY (2017-2020*)NOTE:*the values for this year are at least partly predictive up to six months and may be subject to change.

CAPACITY SPLIT BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

LARGEST AIRLINES BY CAPACITY (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

CAPACITY SPLIT BETWEEN LOCAL AND FOREIGN OPERATORS (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

AIRLINE BUSINESS MODEL CAPACITY SPLIT (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

DEVELOPMENT OF LCC ACTIVITY IN COUNTRY (2009 - 2019)

ALLIANCE CAPACITY SPLIT (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

INTERNATIONAL CAPACITY BREAKDOWN BY COUNTRY (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

DEPARTING SYSTEM SEATS BY CLASS (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

BUSIEST INTERNATIONAL MARKETS BY CAPACITY (w/c 26-Oct-2020)

LOCAL AIRLINES' AIRCRAFT FLEET (as at 26-Oct-2020)

MORE INSIGHTS:

COVID-19 forces major change across Asia-Pacific airline industry

Charting the trends - the strongest global domestic markets have helped boost air travel; China, Russia and South Korea have all now returned to growth

All eyes are still on China where rising GDP is the envy of the world, but global perceptions of the North Asia giant have changed… and not for the better

Macau Airport looks to the long haul charter market for growth after recording its busiest-ever month

Asian travel growth will be partly at the expense of the Pacific region with Macau, Thailand, Maldives, China and Taipei leading five-year growth in visitor receipts