Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours increased slightly by 0.5% year-on-year to 466,843 in February 2011. Visitors from Mainland China (332,349), Hong Kong (19,880), Japan (19,453) and Malaysia (9,191) decreased by 1.2%, 1.5%, 11.4% and 9.0%. On the contrary, visitors from Republic of Korea (25,596); Taiwan, China (24,895) and India (8,374) increased by 85.0%; 16.0% and 61.2% respectively. In the first two months of 2011, visitor arrivals in package tours decreased by 1.6% year-on-year to 908,904. In February 2011, Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours rose by 2.6% year-on-year to 20,724, with Mainland China (69.8% of total), Malaysia (7.6%) and Thailand (4.9%) being the most popular tour itineraries. In the first two months of 2011, outbound residents in package tours totalled 38,956, up by 17.9% year-on-year. Meanwhile, outbound residents travelling under own arrangements using services of travel agencies increased by 12.4% year-on-year to 42,123 and the main destinations were Mainland China (38.3% of total); Hong Kong (26.4%); Taiwan, China (17.0%) and Thailand (7.4%). In the first two months of 2011, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements increased by 29.1% year-on-year to 85,169. At the end of February 2011, total number of available guest rooms of the hotels and guest-houses increased by 1,146 (+6.1%) year-on-year to 20,083 rooms, with that of 5-star hotels (11,992) accounting for 59.7% of the total. Hotels and guest-houses received 600,248 guests in February 2011, up by 3.7% year-on-year, with the majority coming from Mainland China (55.1% of total) and Hong Kong (18.8%). The average length of stay of guests increased by 0.04 night to 1.5 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guest-houses was 82.2%, up by 4.4 percentage points year-on-year; average occupancy rate of hotels stood at 82.9%, with 4-star hotels leading at 85.4% when the average of the 5-star hotels reached 82.3%. Number of guests decreased slightly by 0.2% year-on-year to 1,241,083 in the first two months of 2011, while the average occupancy rate of hotels and guest-houses stood at 80.8%, up by 1.0 percentage point compared with 79.8% from a year earlier. In the first two months of 2011, visitor-guests of the hotels and guest-houses accounted for 60.1% of the total number of tourists (overnight visitors), higher than 59.4% in the same period of 2010.
