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

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours totalled 289,226 in May 2007, up by 21.3% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (189,086) decreased by 2.2% and those from Taiwan, China (32,630) and Hong Kong (22,012) recorded remarkable growth of 128.2% and 193.8% respectively compared with May 2006. In the first five months of 2007, visitors arrived in package tours increased by 36.5% over the same period of 2006 to 1,698,338. In May, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 32.7% year-on-year to 13,370. Mainland China, Thailand, and Japan were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 70.5%, 8.8% and 5.1% of the total respectively. In the first five months of 2007, Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 28.8% over the same period of 2006 to 77,483. Meanwhile, 24,098 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, a decrease of 8.7% over May 2006. Hong Kong (37.6%), Mainland China (30.8%) and Taiwan, China (14.2%) were the major destinations. In the first five months of 2007, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements dropped by 12.8% compared with the same period of 2006 to 125,018. At the end of May 2007, the number of guest rooms available in the hotel industry registered an increase of 1,727 rooms (+15.2%) year-on-year to 13,052 rooms. In May 2007, a total of 453,669 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 32.3%. The average hotel occupancy rate rose by 6.9 percentage points to 72.3%, with 4-star hotels leading at 77.6%. The average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.11 night to 1.26 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (51.3%) and Hong Kong (26.7%). Number of hotel guests totalled 2,287,312 in the first five months of 2007, up by 26.2% over the same period of 2006. In the first five months of 2007, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 42.7% of the total number of tourists, up from 40.5% in 2006.