Package-tour visitors edged down 3.3pct in July

Visitors to Macau on package tours increased 14 percent month-to-month to 771,000 in July, yet down 3.3 percent year-on-year, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) announced yesterday.    

The month-to-month increase was attributable to the summer holidays. In the first seven months of 2018, visitors on package tours totaled 5.04 million, up 10.7 percent year-on-year.

In July, package tour visitors from mainland China (611,000) decreased 7.5 percent year-on-year, while those from South Korea (49,000) and Taiwan (63,000) surged 30.6 percent and 59.4 percent respectively.

There were 116 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of July, an increase of nine year-on-year. The number of guest rooms grew by 8 percent year-on-year to 39,000, of which 5-star hotel rooms went up 11.1 percent to 24,000, accounting for 61.9 percent of the total.

The number of guests of hotels and guesthouses in July rose 1.1 percent year-on-year to 1.23 million. The average length of stay of guests went up 0.1 nights year-on-year to 1.5 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses stood at 89.9 percent, down slightly by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year.

In the first seven months of 2018, guests of hotels and guesthouses totaled 8.1 million, up 6.8 percent year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses rose 3.2 percentage points to 88.7 percent. MDT/Xinhua