Despite the China visa restrictions, visitor arrivals continue to grow. Visitor arrivals in package tours totalled 258,156 in June 2007, up by 24.3% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (148,319) decreased by 9.0%, whereas those from Hong Kong (31,465) and Taiwan, China (28,587) recorded remarkable growth of 316.2% and 86.0% respectively compared with June 2006. In the first half of 2007, visitors arrived in package tours increased by 34.7% over the same period of 2006 to 1,956,494.

In June, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 5.6% year-on-year to 20,487. Mainland China, Thailand, and Japan were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 60.4%, 10.7% and 9.5% of the total respectively. In the first half of 2007, Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 25.0% over the same period of 2006 to 97,970.

Meanwhile, 32,597 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, an increase of 17.0% over June 2006. Hong Kong (40.6%), Mainland China (24.6%) and Taiwan, China (16.0%) were the major destinations. In the first half of 2007, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements dropped by 8.0% compared with the same period of 2006 to 157,615.

At the end of June 2007, the number of guest rooms available in the hotel industry registered an increase of 1,474 rooms (+12.5%) year-on-year to 13,222 rooms.

In June 2007, a total of 407,793 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 17.5%. The average hotel occupancy rate rose by 0.9 percentage point to 68.9%, with 4-star hotels leading at 76.3%. The average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.1 night to 1.26 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (45.3%) and Hong Kong (31.5%). Number of hotel guests totalled 2,695,105 in the first half of 2007, up by 24.8% over the same period of 2006.

In the first half of 2007, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 42.7% of the total number of tourists, up from 40.8% in 2006.

Source : Statistics and Census Service

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