Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR) per visitor fell to MOP4,943 ($618) in February, down 20 percent sequentially from January, as a surge in non-gaming tourists during the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday diluted per capita spending, according to CreditSights.
The decline came despite strong overall visitation and solid GGR performance during the month. CreditSights analysts said the drop in GGR per visitor was “as expected,” noting that “a larger portion of the visitors traveling into Macau over the CNY holiday had likely been non-gambling tourists and families”.
On a year-on-year basis, GGR per visitor also declined by 21 percent, highlighting a shift in visitor mix toward mass tourism rather than gaming-focused travel. The metric is considered a proxy for gaming spend per capita, as Macau does not disclose standalone per-visitor spending data.
Visitor arrivals surged during the month, reaching 4.17 million, up 33 percent year-on-year and marking the second-highest monthly total on record. The increase was driven largely by the extended nine-day CNY holiday period, compared with eight days in 2025.
Mainland Chinese visitors accounted for 79 percent of total arrivals, rising 44 percent year-on-year to 3.3 million. Of these, approximately 2 million entered under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS), a 53 percent increase from a year earlier.
During the CNY period alone, Macau recorded 1.55 million visitors, including 1.2 million from mainland China. Even when adjusting for the longer holiday, visitor growth remained solid, at 9 percent to 10 percent year-on-year.
Despite the lower per-visitor spend, overall GGR for February exceeded expectations, rising 4.5 percent year-on-year to MOP20.6 billion ($2.63 billion), ahead of market consensus forecasts of around 1 percent growth.
For the first two months of 2026, total GGR reached MOP43.3 billion ($5.54 billion), up 14 percent year-on-year and slightly ahead of the pace required to meet the government’s full-year target of MOP236 billion ($30.2 billion), CreditSights said.
