Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 2.2% year-on-year to 582,596 in May 2011. Visitors from Mainland China (431,562); Taiwan, China (31,321); Hong Kong (25,170) and Republic of Korea (21,055) increased by 2.2%, 47.1%, 23.6% and 43.1% respectively. On the contrary, visitors from Japan (13,724) decreased by 39.4%. In the first five months of 2011, visitor arrivals in package tours decreased by 1.6% year-on-year to 2,534,151. In May 2011, Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours decreased by 10.1% year-on-year to 17,180, with those to Thailand increasing significantly but those to Japan seeing substantial decrease. The most popular tour itineraries are Mainland China (78.1% of total), Thailand (6.2%) and Malaysia (4.4%). In the first five months of 2011, outbound residents in package tours increased by 2.5% year-on-year to 90,797. At the same time, outbound residents travelling under own arrangements using services of travel agencies surged by 30.0% year-on-year to 48,046; the main destinations were Mainland China (41.2% of total); Hong Kong (20.7%); and Taiwan, China (18.1%). Those travelling to Thailand and Republic of Korea also registered notable increase. In the first five months of 2011, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements increased by 26.7% year-on-year to 220,861. At the end of May 2011, total number of available guest rooms of hotels and guest-houses increased by 1,945 (+9.9%) year-on-year to 21,518 rooms, attributable to the opening of new 5-star hotels. Hotels and guest-houses received 689,495 guests in May 2011, up by 5.9% year-on-year, with the majority coming from Mainland China (54.3% of total) and Hong Kong (18.5%). The average length of stay of guests decreased by 0.01 night to 1.5 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guest-houses was 82.0%, up by 4.1 percentage points year-on-year. Average occupancy rate of hotels stood at 82.6%, with 4-star hotels leading at 88.2%. Hotel guests increased by 2.7% year-on-year to 3,284,327 in the first five months of 2011; average occupancy rate of hotels and guest-houses stood at 81.9%, up by 2.7 percentage points compared with 79.2% a year earlier. In the first five months of 2011, visitor-guests of hotels and guest-houses accounted for 61.3% of the total number of tourists (overnight visitors), higher than 60.8% in the same period of 2010.
