Room shortage in Macau as tourism comes back

This shortage has put a strain on the city's hospitality industry, which is grappling to meet the high demands of incoming tourists.
This shortage has put a strain on the city’s hospitality industry, which is grappling to meet the high demands of incoming tourists. Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/SeanPavonePhoto

Like many other cities, Macau has been struggling to cater to the surge of tourists from China following the lifting of Covid border curbs and restrictions. However, a labour shortage has forced integrated resorts to close off thousands of hotel rooms and reduce guest services such as housekeeping.

According to Bloomberg, some five-star hotels in Macau’s casinos have fewer than half of their rooms available for booking, and one operator has about one-fifth of its rooms out of commission.

As a result, hotel prices are quickly picking up, with Macau’s average hotel room price in February at 1,206 patacas (US$149), already 80% of pre-Covid levels, while visitation was only 45% of what it was in 2019, according to data from the Macau Government Tourism Office.

Front-facing staff like waiters, cleaners, and receptionists at hotels and restaurants are urgently needed. Before Covid, these jobs were largely filled by non-local workers, many from China and Southeast Asia.

Many of those workers were either let go or left their posts when Macau shut its borders alongside Hong Kong and suffered a tourist drought amid China’s lockdowns and travel curbs. More than 44,000 non-local employees have left Macau since early 2020, leaving a gaping hole in the workforce even as China’s ending of its Covid Zero policy fuels a travel boom not seen since 2019.

Part of the holdup is the initial need for government-approved quotas for non-local workers, which can lag as authorities ensure there aren’t any suitable local candidates. Even after securing those quotas, hiring is slow.

Recruitment agents have found that many former employees from China have returned there and are now working in cities over the border, while workers from Southeast Asia that used to make up a sizeable chunk of the hotel and casino workforce have headed to countries like Singapore and Vietnam where gaming and tourism are booming.

 

 

Source: https://www.travelweekly-asia.com/Destination-Travel/Room-shortage-in-Macau-as-tourism-comes-back?