Results of the Package Tours and Hotel Occupancy Rate / February 2005

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that in view of the Chinese New Year holiday fell in February 2005, number of visitors arrived in Macao in package tours totalled 194,322, up 59.6% over February 2004. Visitors from Mainland China (147,384) had a year-on-year growth of 46.5% while visitors from Taiwan,China (20,743) and Hong Kong (8,867) increased 153.6% and 16.4%. In the first two months of 2005, visitors arrived in Macao in package tours grew 35.7% over the same period of 2004 to 380,767. Under the effect of the Chinese New Year holiday, number of Macao residents travelling in package tours totalled 22,393 in February, a remarkable year-on-year increase of 260%. Mainland China, the Republic of Korea and Thailand were the three more popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 84.2%, 3.1% and 2.8% of the total respectively. In the first two months, number of Macao residents travelling in package tours went up 57.2% compared with the same period of 2004. Meanwhile, 22,431 Macao residents travelled under own arrangements with the assistance of travel agencies, an increase of 14.8% over February 2004; Mainland China (40.1%), Hong Kong (23.2%) and Taiwan, China (17.6%) were the major destinations. In the first two months, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements fell 16.0% compared with the same period of 2004. At the end of February 2005, there were 10,181 rooms available in hotels and similar establishments, a year-on-year growth of 10.6% due to the openings of 5 more hotels over the same month of 2004. In February 2005, a total of 288,249 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, up 8.9% over February 2004. The average hotel occupancy rate was 65.4%, a year-on-year increase of 0.9 percentage point; the highest average was in 3-star hotels, at 70.5%. The average length of stay of hotel guests was 1.16 nights, which fell 0.01 night over February 2004. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (56.6%), Hong Kong (28.9%) and Taiwan, China (3.4%). In the first two months of 2005, there were 590,680 hotel guests, up 6.1% over 2004. In the first two months of 2005, hotel guests accounted for 39.8% of the total number of tourists, which was lower than the 43.2% in the same period of 2004.