Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 9.7% year-on-year to 458,920 in January 2010. Visitors from Mainland China (328,956), Japan (23,759) and Taiwan, China (22,937) rose by 5.1%, 55.6% and 61.9% year-on-year respectively, while those from Hong Kong (20,638) decreased by 28.4%. As the 2009 Chinese New Year fell in January, number of Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours in January 2010 dropped substantially by 29.2% year-on-year to 12,842, with Mainland China (63.1% of total), Japan (7.3%) and Taiwan, China (7.1%) being the most popular tour itineraries. Meanwhile, outbound residents travelling under individual arrangements using services of travel agencies totalled 28,471, down by 4.5% year-on-year; the main destinations were Mainland China (37.0% of total), Hong Kong (31.1%) and Taiwan, China (13.7%). At the end of January 2010, total number of available guest rooms of the hotel sector increased by 1,548 (+8.8%) year-on-year to 19,086 rooms. Attributable to the improved economic conditions, a total of 664,403 guests checked into hotels and guest-houses in January 2010, up by 26.6% year-on-year, with the majority coming from Mainland China (53.4% of total) and Hong Kong (19.0%). The average occupancy rate of the hotels and guest-houses soared by 16.0 percentage points year-on-year to 81.6% and that of the hotels reached 82.4%, with 4-star hotels leading at 87.8%. The average length of stay of the guests increased by 0.1 night to 1.5 nights. In January 2010, visitor-guests of hotels and guest-houses accounted for 62.7% of the total number of tourists, up from 56.7% in January 2009.
