Leisure tourists to spark Macau casino 2017 rally

Gaming analysts are betting on leisure players from different countries to drive Macau’s gaming revenue for this year.

For 2017, analysts surveyed by Bloomberg are predicting that Asia’s gambling mecca will see its gambling revenue rise by 7 percent due to a surge in tourists from beyond China.

“There are definitely more reasons to come to Macau now versus two years ago, and that is the key reason why overnight visitation is growing faster than total visitation,” said Nomura Holdings Inc. analyst Richard Huang. “we expect that to continue drive growth in the mass gaming segment.”

Data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Services showed that the number of tourists from South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. that have visited Macau spiked in November, offsetting the declining arrivals of mainland Chinese who make up two-thirds of the region’s 2.6 million visitors in the month.