Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours surged by 75.6% year-on-year to 458,968 in July 2010. In comparison with July 2009, visitors from Mainland China (323,849); Taiwan, China (24,519); Japan (24,081) and the Republic of Korea (12,370) rose substantially by 98.4%, 23.3%, 64.7% and 260.1% respectively, while those from Hong Kong (24,165) decreased by 7.6%. In the first seven months of 2010, visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 39.0% year-on-year to 3,523,907. In July 2010, Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours soared by 69.3% year-on-year to 25,105, with Mainland China (71.0% of total); Taiwan, China (6.5%); Malaysia (5.8%) and Japan (5.6%) being the most popular tour itineraries. In the first seven months of 2010, residents travelling in package tours totalled 135,664, up by 27.4% year-on-year. Meanwhile, outbound residents travelling under own arrangements using services of travel agencies rose by 15.5% year-on-year to 50,012 and the main destinations were Mainland China (31.5% of total), Hong Kong (31.3%) and Taiwan, China (18.6%). In the first seven months of 2010, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements increased by 11.4% year-on-year to 267,325. At the end of July 2010, total number of available guest rooms of the hotel sector increased by 1,564 (+8.6%) year-on-year to 19,759 rooms. A total of 654,999 guests checked into hotels and guest-houses in July 2010, up by 24.6% year-on-year, with the majority coming from Mainland China (51.9% of total) and Hong Kong (21.3%). The average occupancy rate of hotels and guest-houses stood at 79.9%, up significantly by 12.2 percentage points year-on-year; average occupancy rate of hotels reached 80.6%, with 4-star hotels leading at 82.2%. The average length of stay of guests remained unchanged as July 2009, at 1.5 nights. Number of guests reached 4,455,167 in the first seven months of 2010, up by 22.7% over the same period of 2009. In the first seven months of 2010, visitor-guests of hotels and guest-houses accounted for 60.5% of the total number of tourists, down from 61.4% in the same period of 2009.
