Considering the fact the Venetian Macao Hotel rooms were fully booked during the Chinese Lunar New Year during which the average daily room rate was US$360 compared to the US$222 average for last year, it was no surprise to hear Bill Weidner, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands boasting “So much for the conventional wisdom that Asians will not pay top dollar for rooms under demand conditions,” .

This was followed by the news that at the end of December 2007, the total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 3,170 (+24.4%) from a year ago to 16,148 rooms.

In December 2007, a total of 528,533 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 9.7%. The average hotel occupancy rate soared by 5.0 percentage points to 83.0%, with 4-star hotels leading at 89.3%; in addition, the average length of stay of hotel guests extended by 0.23 night to 1.4 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (48.0%) and Hong Kong (26.7%).

Total number of hotel guests reached 5,739,734 in 2007, up by 22.6% over 2006. The average hotel occupancy rate for the whole year of 2007 increased by 5.0 percentage points over 2006 to 77.2% and the average length of stay of the guests rose by 0.15 night over 2006 to 1.36 nights.

In 2007, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 42.0% of the total number of tourists, up slightly from 41.5% in 2006.

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