A difficult year for Macau’s tourism in 2015

The direct tourism consumption of visitors in 2015 amounted to MOP217.6 billion (US$27.06 billion), down 28.7 per cent year-on-year, according the latest Tourism Satellite Account composed by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
The account shows that the proportion of spending on gambling in 2015, a total of MOP181.9 billion, decreased by 3.6 percentage points, to 83.6 per cent of total tourism consumption.
However, the shares of other tourism goods and services – such as shopping, food and beverages, accommodation and passenger transport – all grew during the year in question, despite the amounts generated from the aforementioned sectors all dropping year-on-year.
Meanwhile, the total value of supply of tourism goods and services generated MOP254.7 billion, plummeting 25.7 per cent when compared to 2014.
In terms of the types of services supplied, services related to gambling decreased 31.5 per cent in 2015, amounting to MOP185.4 billion in value.
Given that many new hotel establishments, such as JW Marriott Macau Hotel were launched in 2015, the gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) of the hotels and similar establishments sector leaped by 944.1 per cent year-on-year, reaching MOP28.9 billion in 2015.
Other industries that experienced significant growth of GFCF in 2015 included the retail trade and passenger transport activities, up 192 per cent and 116.9 per cent year-on-year, respectively.
The account focuses on six main tourism related industries: hotels and similar establishments, the retail trade, the gaming sector, passenger transport activities, restaurants and similar establishments, and travel agencies.
Growth also appeared in the number of enterprises and establishments operating in tourism related industries, from 10,027 in 2014 to 10,371 in 2015.
Given the increase in the number of establishments in tourism related industries, the city also experienced a higher demand for manpower, with the total number of people engaged in the six tourism related industries reaching 184,000, up 5 per cent year-on-year.
In particular, a total of 56,000 individuals were engaged in the gaming sector, a decrease of 2.7 per cent year-on-year. For hotel establishments, the sector attracted 45,000 workers, up 14.7 per cent.
On the other hand, the tourism ratio for all goods and services in the year was 85.5 per cent in 2015, decreasing by 3.5 percentage points from the year before. This indicates that over 85 per cent of tourism goods and services were still consumed by tourists, despite the ratio dropping year-on-year.
In particular, the ratio for gaming services was 98.1 per cent, down 0.3 percentage points, year-on-year.
The DSEC data also shows that the tourism value added (TVA) in 2015 dropped by 30.4 per cent year-on-year, to MOP164.4 billion, compared to the MOP239 billion recorded in 2014.
TVA is the value added created in an economy by tourism related industries in providing goods and services directly to tourists, and is used to measure the sector’s direct contribution to the city’s economy.
The gaming sector contributed over 90 per cent of the city’s TVA, generating MOP150.4 billion of TVA in 2015, down 31.7 per cent year-on-year.