Package tour visitors increase by 41 percent

The number of visitors on package tours surged by 41.4 percent year-on-year to 755,000 in January 2018, according to information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). The number of mainland Chinese visitors coming on package tours increased by almost 50 percent.

Package tour visitors from South Korea (50,000) and Taiwan (47,000) grew by 13.5 percent and 41 percent respectively.

The number of guests staying in Macau’s hotels and guesthouses in January 2018 rose by 12.9 percent year-on-year to 1.176 million. The average length of stay of guests held steady year-on-year at 1.4 nights.

Guests coming from mainland China (815,000) and South Korea (52,000) increased by 20 percent and 37.2 percent respectively year-on-year, while those from Hong Kong (102,000) and Taiwan (40,000) dropped 19.5 percent and 1.1 percent respectively.

There were 114 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of January, an increase of seven year-on-year. Meanwhile, the number of guest rooms grew by 2.6 percent year-on-year to 37,000, with five-star hotel rooms rising by 2.2 percent to 22,000, accounting for about 60 percent of the rooms in Macau in total.

The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses stood at 90.3 percent, up 8.7 percentage points year-on-year, with the rates of five-star hotels (93.5 percent) and four-
star hotels (91.9 percent) rising 10 percentage points and 9.6 percentage points respectively.

In January, outbound residents using the services of travel agencies rose by 7.3 percent year-on-year to 122,00. Among them, residents traveling on package tours dropped by 4.7 percent to 44,000, with those going to mainland China decreasing by 15.8 percent to 26,000.