Package Tours and Hotel Occupancy Rate for July 2008

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that Macao registered 406,346 visitor arrivals in package tours in July 2008, up by 27.0% from a year earlier. Visitors from Mainland China (282,412) and Southeast Asia (36,774) grew notably by 29.0% and 108.6% year-on-year, while those from Taiwan, China (24,978) decreased by 17.0%. In the first seven months of 2008, visitors arrived in package tours rose by 23.8% over the same period of 2007 to 2,819,196. The number of Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours in July 2008 decreased by 7.5% year-on-year to 19,797. Mainland China (61.5%), Thailand (10.1%) and Japan (8.1%) were the three most popular tour itineraries. In the first seven months of 2008, Macao residents travelling in package tours rose by 5.9% over the same period of 2007 to 126,392. Meanwhile, 34,765 residents travelled outbound under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, down by 10.4% over July 2007. Hong Kong (46.5%), Mainland China (22.3%) and Taiwan, China (10.2%) were the major destinations. In the first seven months of 2008, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements rose by 10.8% year-on-year to 217,690. At the end of July 2008, the total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector grew by 3,420 (+26.6%) from a year earlier to 16,279 rooms. In July 2008, a total of 587,624 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year increase of 24.9%; the majority of the guests came from Mainland China (47.4%) and Hong Kong (25.9%). The average hotel occupancy rate rose by 1.2 percentage points to 78.9%, with 4-star hotels leading at 84.3%; in addition, the average length of stay of hotel guests extended by 0.1 night to 1.4 nights. Total number of hotel guests reached 3,795,209 in the first seven months of 2008, up by 19.9% over the same period of 2007. In the first seven months of 2008, visitor-guests staying in hotels accounted for 43.3% of the total number of tourists, up from 42.6% in the corresponding period of 2007.