Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours recorded a year-on-year increase of 3.7% to 387,407 in August 2009, putting an end to the continuous decline for the past three months. Visitors in package tours from Mainland China (272,485); Taiwan, China (28,101); and Japan (23,175) increased by 7.9%, 16.6% and 45.8% respectively; however, those from Hong Kong (23,899) decreased by 13.3%. In the first eight months of 2009, visitor arrivals in package tours fell by 8.4% year-on-year to 2,923,256. In August 2009, the number of Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours dropped by 5.1% year-on-year to 26,507. Mainland China (74.6% of total); Japan (6.2%); and Taiwan, China (5.0%) were the most popular tour itineraries. In the first eight months of 2009, residents travelling outbound in package tours decreased by 13.8% year-on-year to 132,971. Meanwhile, 45,896 residents travelled outbound under own arrangements with services of travel agencies, up by 22.0% from August 2008. Hong Kong (38.2% of total); Mainland China (29.9%); and Taiwan, China (15.3%) were the main destinations. In the first eight months of 2009, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements increased by 12.0% year-on-year to 285,826. At the end of August 2009, total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 1,570 (+9.5%) from a year earlier to 18,147 rooms. In August 2009, a total of 631,454 guests checked into hotels and guest-houses, up significantly by 15.5% year-on-year, with the majority coming from Mainland China (47.6% of total) and Hong Kong (27.9%). The average hotel occupancy rate rose by 3.7 percentage points year-on-year to 80.4%, with 4-star hotels leading at 87.0%. The average length of stay of hotel guests rose marginally by 0.01 night year-on-year to 1.5 nights. The cumulative number of hotel guests decreased by 1.8% in the first eight months of 2009 to 4,261,908. In the first eight months of 2009, visitor-guests of hotels accounted for 61.0% of the total number of tourists, up from 56.8% in the corresponding period of 2008.
