Results of the Package Tours and Hotel Occupancy Rate for June 2006

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours totalled 207,989 in June 2006, down 3.2% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (162,975) and Taiwan, China (15,371) dropped 2.7% and 32.9% respectively; however, those from Hong Kong (7,560) grew 20.0% over June 2005. In the first half of 2006, visitor arrivals in package tours increased 17.6% over the same period of 2005 to 1,454,698. Number of Macao residents travelling in package tours was 21,712 in June 2006, a year-on-year decrease of 23.0%. Mainland China, Thailand and Japan were the three more popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 68.6%, 8.2% and 5.2% of the total respectively. In the first six months of 2006, Macao residents travelling in package tours (130,587) grew 3.3% compared with the same period of 2005. Meanwhile, 27,872 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by the travel agencies, an increase of 2.4% over June 2005; Mainland China (32.9%), Hong Kong (25.7%) and Taiwan, China (20.0%) were the major destinations. In the first half of 2006, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements surged 23.7% to 171,282 compared with the corresponding period of 2005. At the end of June 2006, number of guest rooms available in the hotel industry registered an increase of 1,177 rooms (+11.1%) over June 2005 to 11,748 rooms. In addition, a total of 346,970 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, up by 3.5% compared with June 2005. The average hotel occupancy rate was 68.0%, representing a slight increase of 0.4 percentage point; the highest average was in the 4-star hotels, at 75.8%. The hotel guests stayed an average of 1.16 nights, which rose by 0.02 night compared with June 2005. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (56.7%), Hong Kong (24.6%) and Taiwan, China (3.2%). In the first half of 2006, number of hotel guests increased 13.3% over 2005 to 2,159,068. In the first six months of 2006, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 40.8% of the total number of tourists, which was lower than the 42.4% recorded in the same period of 2005.