Package Tours and Hotel Occupancy Rate for July 2009

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tourssaw continuous decrease, down notably by 35.7% year-on-year to 261,349 in July 2009. Visitors in package tours from Mainland China (163,255); Taiwan, China (19,887) and Japan (14,618) decreased by 42.2%, 20.4% and 7.1% respectively, while those from Hong Kong (26,146) increased by 7.1%. In the first seven months of 2009, visitor arrivals in package tours fell by 10.1% year-on-year to 2,535,849. In July 2009, the number of Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours dropped by 25.1% year-on-year to 14,826. Mainland China (62.9%); Taiwan, China (8.8%); and Singapore & Malaysia (7.2%) were the most popular tour itineraries. In the first seven months of 2009, residents travelling outbound in package tours decreased by 15.8% year-on-year to 106,464. Meanwhile, 43,303 residents travelled outbound under own arrangements with services of travel agencies, up by 24.6% over July 2008. Mainland China (49.6%); Hong Kong (20.3%) and Taiwan, China (16.7%) were the main destinations. In the first seven months of 2009, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements rose by 10.2% year-on-year to 239,930. At the end of July 2009, total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 1,879 (+11.5%) from a year earlier to 18,152 rooms. In July 2009, a total of 525,731 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, down by 10.5% year-on-year, with the majority of guests coming from Mainland China (43.3%) and Hong Kong (29.3%). The average occupancy rate fell by 10.8 percentage points year-on-year to 68.1%, with 4-star hotels leading at 71.7%. The average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.13 night year-on-year to 1.49 nights. The cumulative number of hotel guests decreased by 4.3% in the first seven months of 2009 to 3,630,454. In the first seven months of 2009, visitor-guests of hotels accounted for 61.4% of the total number of tourists, up from 56.9% in the corresponding period of 2008.