Macau casino hotel holiday bookings point to recovery in gaming sector

Now is a good time for investors to position themselves for a potential share price rally of casinos with new hotels in Cotai Macau, according to Deutsche Bank, which reiterates a “Buy” on Sands China and Wynn Macau.

“We’ve checked the Chinese Lunar New Year room availability for 23 casino hotels in Macau. Of these, 19 hotels are already fully booked in the three days from January 30 to February 1,” Deutsche Bank analyst Karen Tang said in a report. “This is much busier than October’s Golden Week four months ago when only nine hotels were fully booked a week before the holiday.”

Using online booking tools, Deutsche Bank said it checked the room rates of 23 casino hotels in Macau.

Despite having the largest room inventory among casino operators – about 12,800 rooms in total – all of Sands China’s hotels in Cotai are fully booked during the three day period, while Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau were fully booked from January 28 to February 4.

“These advance booking trends seem much stronger than last year’s October Golden Week,” Tang said. Not only were more rooms booked this Lunar New Year, the lowest available rate of

HK$1,882 is 25 per cent higher than the best deal available during Golden Week.