Package Tours and Hotel Occupancy Rate for December 2008

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that Macao registered 501,535 visitor arrivals in package tours in December 2008, up by 16.2% from a year earlier. Visitors from Mainland China (346,570) and Taiwan, China (37,106) increased by 18.4% and 32.8% year-on-year respectively, while those from Hong Kong (32,534) decreased by 10.8%. For the whole year of 2008, visitor arrivals in package tours rose by 15.8% over 2007 to 4,902,029. The number of Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours decreased by 11.3% year-on-year to 22,668 in December 2008. Mainland China (77.2%); Taiwan, China (6.2%); and Japan (5.4%) were the three most popular tour itineraries. In 2008, Macao residents travelling in package tours rose by 8.1% over 2007 to 229,188. Meanwhile, 33,074 residents travelled outbound under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, up by 11.7% over December 2007. Hong Kong (47.3%), Mainland China (22.9%) and Taiwan, China (10.6%) were the major destinations. In 2008, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements dropped by 2.5% year-on-year to 377,229. At the end of December 2008, the number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 1,342 (+8.3%) from a year earlier to 17,490 rooms. In December 2008, a total of 617,501 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, up by 16.8% year-on-year; the majority of the guests came from Mainland China (48.3%) and Hong Kong (23.0%). The average hotel occupancy rate for December 2008 dropped by 4.1 percentage points year-on-year to 79.0%, with 4-star hotels leading at 87.6%; in addition, the average length of stay of hotel guests dropped by 0.02 night to 1.4 nights. Total number of hotel guests reached 6,537,661 in 2008, up by 13.9% over 2007; the average hotel occupancy rate for 2008 decreased by 2.7 percentage points from 2007 to 74.5%. For 2008 as a whole, visitor-guests staying in hotels accounted for 43.5% of the total number of tourists, up from 42.0% in 2007.