Macau Package Tour Arrivals Up

Written on February 12, 2007 by Macau

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours totalled 323,111 in December 2006, corresponding to a notable increase of 34.0% year-on-year. Among them, visitors from Mainland China (228,245) increased by 14.7% when those from Hong Kong (37,756) and Southeast Asia (21,765) recorded remarkable growths of 225.5% and 290.4% respectively. In 2006, total visitor arrivals in package tours grew 9.3% over 2005 to 2,925,724, while those from Mainland China accounted for 78.4% of the total.

Number of Macao residents travelling in package tours in December 2006 was 27,109, a slight increase of 0.1% year-on-year. Mainland China; Thailand; and Taiwan, China were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 76.8%, 5.5% and 4.4% of the total respectively. In 2006, Macao residents (272,444) travelling in package tours went down 7.6% compared with 2005.

Meanwhile, 39,577 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, up 4.4% over December 2005. Hong Kong (43.8%); Mainland China (26.8%); and Taiwan, China (12.5%) were the major destinations. In 2006, Macao residents travelled under such arrangements increased 11.5% over 2005 to 372,159.

At the end of December 2006, number of guest rooms available in the hotel industry registered an increase of 2,146 rooms (+19.8%) over December 2005 to 12,978 rooms.

In December 2006, a total of 481,868 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a year-on-year growth of 24.7%. In addition, the average hotel occupancy rate rose by 2.0 percentage points to 78.1%, with 4-star hotels leading at 87.0%; the average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.03 night to 1.17 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (52.4%); Hong Kong (28.8%); and Taiwan, China (2.7%). In 2006, total number of hotel guests surged 13.6% over 2005 to 4,680,854; the average hotel occupancy rate rose by 1.3 percentage points compared with 2005, at 72.3%.

In 2006, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 41.5% of the total number of tourists, which was lower than the 43.3% recorded in 2005.