Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that Macao saw 388,796 visitor arrivals in package tours in January 2008, up by 22.8% from a year earlier. Visitors from Mainland China (282,506), Hong Kong (22,604) and Taiwan, China (18,079) recorded year-on-year growth of 21.4%, 13.2% and 5.8% respectively.

In January 2008, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours rose by 27.7% year-on-year to 13,536. Mainland China, Japan and Thailand were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 55.2%, 17.6% and 7.5% of the total respectively.

Meanwhile, 33,057 residents travelled under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, up notably by 40.0% over January 2007. Hong Kong (54.5%), Mainland China (23.7%) and Taiwan, China (6.3%) were the major destinations.

At the end of January 2008, the total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 3,204 (+24.8%) from a year earlier to 16,126 rooms.

In January 2008, a total of 562,547 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 30.9%. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (47.4%) and Hong Kong (21.6%). The average hotel occupancy rate went up by 1.0 percentage point to 72.7%, with 4-star hotels leading at 78.1%; in addition, the average length of stay of hotel guests extended by 0.2 night to 1.4 nights.

In January 2008, visitor-guests staying in hotels accounted for 47.0% of the total number of tourists, up from 41.4% in January 2007.