Package tour visitors to Macao down 2.1% in Sep

Nov. 13, 2008 (China Knowledge) - The total number of package tour visitors to Macao in September fell 2.1% year-on-year to 304,260, according to statistics from the Statistics and Census Service of the Macao SAR government.

Visitors from Southeast Asia were 34,324, surging 80% year-on-year, while those from Chinese mainland and Hong Kong were down 6.4% and 1.7% from a year earlier to 178,835 and 36,673 respectively.

During the first nine months this year, the number of package tour visitors to Macao totaled 3,496,930 million, up 17.6% over the same period of last year.

More than 15,819 Macao residents traveled abroad in package tours in September, up 19% from the previous year. Chinese mainland (71.9%), Japan (10.1%) and Taiwan (5.4%) were the top three destinations for package travelers.

During the Jan.-Sep. period, the number of Macao residents who traveled abroad in package tours rose 7.3% year-on-year to 170,142.

At the end of September, the total number of guest rooms available in Macao's entire hotel sector was 16,792, up 6.8% from a year earlier or an increase of 1,037 rooms.

The average occupancy rate of local hotels dropped 4.7% to 66.8%, while five-star hotels experienced the highest rise of 69.5% in occupancy rates.

A total of 473,600 visitors, mainly from mainland China (41.7%) and Hong Kong (25.5%), checked into Macao's hotels and similar establishments in September, representing a year-on-year decrease of 9.4%. The number of total check-ins in the first nine months was 4,815,712, up 14.2% year-on-year.