Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that Macao registered 431,880 visitor arrivals in package tours in October 2008, up by 17.0% from a year earlier. Visitors from Mainland China (293,458) and Taiwan, China (33,224) increased by 14.8% and 37.8% respectively; however, visitors from Hong Kong (30,424) recorded a decrease of 4.7%. In the first ten months of 2008, visitor arrivals in package tours rose by 17.5% over the same period of 2007 to 3,928,810.
The number of Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours increased by 34.4% year-on-year to 16,316 in October 2008. Mainland China (75.1%), Japan (6.0%) and Taiwan, China (5.5%) were the three most popular tour itineraries. In the first ten months of 2008, Macao residents travelling in package tours rose by 9.2% over the same period of 2007 to 186,458.
Meanwhile, 29,788 residents travelled outbound under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, up by 9.4% over October 2007. Hong Kong (39.7%), Mainland China (25.7%) and Taiwan, China (12.5%) were the major destinations. In the first ten months of 2008, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements dropped by 4.7% year-on-year to 315,992.
At the end of October 2008, the total number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector grew by 1,240 (+7.9%) from a year earlier to 16,980 rooms.
In October 2008, a total of 536,761 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, up by 9.5% year-on-year; the majority of the guests came from Mainland China (44.9%) and Hong Kong (23.1%). The average hotel occupancy rate dropped by 7.8 percentage points to 71.5%, with 4-star hotels leading at 77.0%; in addition, the average length of stay of hotel guests dropped by 0.1 night to 1.4 nights. Total number of hotel guests reached 5,352,348 in the first ten months of 2008, up by 13.7% over the same period of 2007.
In the first ten months of 2008, visitor-guests staying in hotels accounted for 43.0% of the total number of tourists, up slightly from 42.6% in the corresponding period of 2007.
