The number of visitor arrivals in package tours, in light of the National Day holidays, reached 369,056 in October 2007, up notably by 70.8% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (255,675), Hong Kong (31,929) and Taiwan, China (24,117) recorded remarkable growth of 65.3%, 191.2% and 36.6% respectively compared with October 2006. In the first ten months of 2007, visitors arrived in package tours surged by 44.5% over the same period of 2006 to 3,342,966.

In October, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours decreased by 38.0% year-on-year to 12,144. Mainland China, Thailand and Republic of Korea were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 67.7%, 7.9% and 5.3% of the total respectively. In the first ten months of 2007, Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 23.6% over the same period of 2006 to 170,777.

Meanwhile, 27,234 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, up slightly by 1.1% over October 2006. Hong Kong (32.1%), Mainland China (29.1%) and Taiwan, China (20.3%) were the major destinations. In the first ten months of 2007, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements increased by 9.7% compared with the same period of 2006 to 331,421.

At the end of October 2007, the total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 3,321 (+26.7%) from a year ago to 15,740 rooms.

In October 2007, a total of 490,271 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 18.9%. With the attraction of several major events held in October, the average hotel occupancy rate soared by 5.7 percentage points to 79.3%, with 3-star hotels leading at 82.4%; in addition, the average length of stay of hotel guests extended substantially by 0.43 night to 1.62 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (46.3%) and Hong Kong (27.9%). Number of hotel guests totalled 4,706,089 in the first ten months of 2007, up by 25.3% over the same period of 2006.

In the first ten months of 2007, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 42.6% of the total number of tourists, up from 41.0% in the same period.

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