Macau Package Tours Hotel Occupancy Rates Up

Written on March 14, 2007 by Macau

Visitor arrivals in package tours totalled 327,611 in January 2007, up by 63.3% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (239,703), Hong Kong (24,361) and Taiwan, China (17,089) reported remarkable growths of 48.2%, 207.7% and 77.0% respectively compared with January 2006.

As the 2006 Chinese New Year holidays fell in January, the number of Macao residents travelling in package tours in January 2007 dropped significantly by 63.5% year-on-year to 10,603. Mainland China; Thailand; and Japan were the three more popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 70.2%, 9.6% and 5.3% of the total respectively.

Meanwhile, 23,607 residents travelled under own arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, a decrease of 26.4% over January 2006. Hong Kong (42.7%); Mainland China (28.2%); and Taiwan, China (15.8%) were the major destinations.

At the end of January 2007, number of guest rooms available in the hotel industry registered an increase of 1,907 rooms (+17.3%) year-on-year to 12,922 rooms.

In January 2007, a total of 429,669 guests checked into hotels and similar establishments, representing a notable year-on-year growth of 31.3%. The average hotel occupancy rate grew by 7.3 percentage points to 71.8%, with 4-star hotels leading at 79.2%. The average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.04 night to 1.20 nights. The majority of the guests came from Mainland China (53.6%) and Hong Kong (25.8%).

In January 2007, hotel guests (excluding Macao residents) accounted for 41.4% of the total number of tourists, which was higher than the 39.3% recorded in January 2006.