Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that Macao registered 471,684 visitor arrivals in package tours in November 2008, up by 2.7% from a year earlier. Visitors from Mainland China (332,967), Hong Kong (34,141) and Taiwan, China (32,269) increased by 0.4%, 3.4% and 28.1% year-on-year respectively. In the first eleven months of 2008, visitor arrivals in package tours rose by 15.7% over the same period of 2007 to 4,400,494.
The number of Macao residents travelling outbound in package tours increased by 27.2% year-on-year to 20,062 in November 2008. Mainland China (77.9%), Japan (7.5%) and Taiwan, China (3.7%) were the three most popular tour itineraries. In the first eleven months of 2008, Macao residents travelling in package tours rose by 10.7% over the same period of 2007 to 206,520.
Meanwhile, 28,163 residents travelled outbound under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, up by 8.7% over November 2007. Hong Kong (44.9%), Mainland China (23.0%) and Taiwan, China (13.6%) were the major destinations. In the first eleven months of 2008, outbound residents travelling under such arrangements dropped by 3.7% year-on-year to 344,155.
At the end of November 2008, the number of guest rooms available in the hotel sector increased by 1,276 (+8.1%) from a year earlier to 17,016 rooms.
In November 2008, a total of 567,812 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, up by 12.4% year-on-year; the majority of the guests came from Mainland China (48.4%) and Hong Kong (22.4%). The average hotel occupancy rate dropped by 6.6 percentage points to 79.2%, with 4-star hotels leading at 85.3%; 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 5,920,160 in the first eleven months of 2008, up by 13.6% over the same period of 2007.
In the first eleven months of 2008, visitor-guests staying in hotels accounted for 43.2% of the total number of tourists, up slightly from 42.4% in the corresponding period of 2007.
