Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours reached 431,655 in December 2007, up notably by 33.6% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (292,812) and Taiwan, China (27,935) surged by 28.3% and 130.0% respectively compared with December 2006; however, visitors from Hong Kong (36,462) dropped by 3.4%. For the whole year of 2007, visitors arrived in package tours jumped by 44.7% over 2006 to 4,233,714.
In December 2007, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours decreased by 5.7% year-on-year to 25,553. Mainland China, Japan and Thailand were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 79.3%, 4.7% and 4.6% of the total respectively. For the whole year of 2007, Macao residents travelling in package tours dropped by 22.1% over 2006 to 212,107.
Meanwhile, 29,600 residents travelled under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, which decreased by 25.2% over December 2006. Hong Kong (40.7%), Mainland China (31.7%) and Taiwan, China (9.3%) were the major destinations. In 2007, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements increased by 4.0% compared with 2006 to 386,927.
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%).
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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.