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

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitors arrivals in package tours totalled 240,573, up 26.8% over February 2005. In view of the Chinese New Year holidays, visitors from Mainland China (196,061) and Hong Kong (10,504) had remarkable growths of 36.2% and 18.5% respectively; however, those from Taiwan, China (10,839) decreased 47.7% over February 2005. In the first two months of 2006, visitors arrived in package tours grew 18.6% over the same period of 2005 to 441,633. Number of Macao residents travelling in package tours totalled 15,321 in February, a year-on-year decrease of 31.6%. Mainland China; Thailand; and Taiwan, China were the three more popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 68.3%, 10.3% and 5.3% of the total respectively. In the first two months of 2006, Macao residents (44,332) travelling in package tours went up 27.5% compared with the same period of 2005. Meanwhile, 27,073 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by the travel agencies, an increase of 20.7% over February 2005; Mainland China (37.5%), Hong Kong (22.8%) and Taiwan, China (14.2%) were the major destinations. In the first two months, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements surged 47.1% to 59,137 compared with the same period of 2005. At the end of February 2006, there were 11,041 rooms available in hotels and similar establishments, an increase of 860 rooms (+8.4%) over February 2005. In addition, a total of 340,115 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, up 18.0% over February 2005. The average hotel occupancy rate was 72.2%, a notable increase of 6.8 percentage points; the highest average was in 3-star hotels, at 79.5%. The hotel guests stayed an average of 1.16 nights, same as that of February 2005. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (60.5%), Hong Kong (24.0%) and Taiwan, China (2.6%). In the first two months of 2006, there were 667,446 hotel guests, up 12.9% over 2005. In the first two months of 2006, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 38.7% of the total number of tourists, which was lower than the 39.8% recorded in same period of 2005.