Results of the Package Tours and Hotel Occupancy Rate for March 2007

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours totalled 360,798 in March 2007, up by 23.3% year-on-year. Vsitors from Mainland China (249,548) decreased slightly by 0.6% whereas visitors from Hong Kong (32,224) and Taiwan, China (31,306) recorded remarkable growth of 242.7% and 251.8% respectively compared with March 2006. In the first quarter of 2007, visitors arrived in package tours grew by 43.9% over the same period of 2006 to 1,055,296. In March, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 28.5% year-on-year to 12,567. Mainland China; Thailand; and Taiwan, China were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 74.5%, 6.0% and 4.9% of the total respectively. In the first quarter of 2007, Macao residents travelling in package tours decreased by 28.8% over the same period of 2006 to 44,107. Meanwhile, 27,723 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, an increase of 3.9% over March 2006. Hong Kong (47.3%); Mainland China (24.9%); and Taiwan, China (14.8%) were the major destinations. In the first quarter of 2007, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements dropped by 9.0% compared with the same period of 2006 to 78,087. At the end of March 2007, the number of guest rooms available in the hotel industry registered an increase of 1,752 rooms (+15.5%) year-on-year to 13,049 rooms. In March 2007, a total of 477,365 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 19.5%. The average hotel occupancy rate grew by 0.9 percentage point to 76.0%, with 4-star hotels leading at 83.3%. The average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.08 night to 1.23 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (52.3%) and Hong Kong (26.7%). Number of hotel guests totalled 1,333,257 in the first quarter of 2007, up by 25.0% over the same quarter of 2006. In the first quarter of 2007, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 41.7% of the total number of tourists, higher than the 40.5% recorded in 2006.