Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 3.0% year-on-year to 372,196 in September 2010. In comparison with September 2009, visitors from Mainland China (224,460) and Japan (27,958) decreased by 7.0% and 11.1% respectively, while those from Taiwan, China (29,174), Hong Kong (22,253), Rupublic of Korea (14,661) and Indonesia (13,003) rose by 27.2%, 27.8%, 246.9% and 30.4% respectively. In the first three quarters of 2010, visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 33.2% year-on-year to 4,373,906. In September 2010, Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours rose significantly by 70.1% year-on-year to 20,102, with Mainland China (80.0% of total); Taiwan, China (4.6%); Japan (3.3%) and Thailand (3.2%) being the most popular tour itineraries. In the first nine months of 2010, residents travelling in package tours totalled 186,831, up by 29.0% year-on-year. Meanwhile, outbound residents travelling under own arrangements using services of travel agencies rose by 2.2% year-on-year to 44,862 and the main destinations were Mainland China (33.7% of total), Hong Kong (28.9%) and Taiwan, China (16.8%). In the first three quarters of 2010, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements increased by 10.0% year-on-year to 362,571. At the end of September 2010, total number of available guest rooms of the hotel sector increased by 1,657 (+9.1%) year-on-year to 19,846 rooms. A total of 588,962 guests checked into hotels and guest-houses in September 2010, up by 8.4% year-on-year, with the majority coming from Mainland China (46.8% of total) and Hong Kong (21.8%). The average occupancy rate of hotels and guest-houses stood at 74.1%, up by 2.0 percentage points year-on-year; average occupancy rate of hotels was 74.7%, with 3-star hotels leading at 78.1%. The average length of stay of guests went up by 0.02 night to 1.5 nights. Number of guests reached 5,739,936 in the first nine months of 2010, up by 19.5% over the same period of 2009. In the first three quarters of 2010, visitor-guests of hotels and guest-houses accounted for 60.5% of the total number of tourists, down from 61.1% in the same period of 2009.
