Results of the Package Tours and Hotel Occupancy Rate for September 2007

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that the number of visitor arrivals in package tours reached 311,161 in September 2007, up notably by 69.4% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (191,123), Hong Kong (37,844) and Taiwan, China (27,813) recorded remarkable growth of 36.3%, 338.2% and 223.8% respectively compared with September 2006. In the first nine months of 2007, visitors arrived in package tours rose by 41.9% over the same period of 2006 to 2,975,551. In September, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours decreased by 7.0% year-on-year to 13,294. Mainland China, Thailand and Japan were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 69.5%, 10.2% and 7.3% of the total respectively. In the first nine months of 2007, Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 22.2% over the same period of 2006 to 158,633. Meanwhile, 54,162 residents travelled under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, which jumped by 100.1% over September 2006. Hong Kong (69.3%), Mainland China (12.8%) and Taiwan, China (8.4%) were the major destinations. In the first nine months of 2007, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements increased by 10.5% compared with the same period of 2006 to 304,187. At the end of September 2007, the total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 3,308 (+26.7%) from a year ago to 15,719 rooms. In September 2007, a total of 522,538 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 43.1%. The average hotel occupancy rate rose by 4.3 percentage points to 71.6%, with 4-star hotels leading at 80.4%. The average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.19 night to 1.37 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (39.9%) and Hong Kong (37.1%). Number of hotel guests totalled 4,215,818 in the first nine months of 2007, up by 26.1% over the same period of 2006. In the first nine months of 2007, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 42.9% of the total number of tourists, up from 41.1% in the same period of 2006.