Tourism | Package tour visitor arrivals soar by 51pct

The number of visitors who have arrived as part of package tours soared by 51 percent year-on-year to 1,165,000 last month, as shown by information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). DSEC said this is due to a 71 percent increase in visitors from mainland China (969,000), who mainly arrive from Guangdong province (334,000).
In the first eleven months of 2014, the number of package tour visitors reached 11,152,000: an increase of 25 percent year-on-year.
Visitors from Taiwan increased by 9 percent, reaching 63,000, while the number of arrivals from South Korea (36,000) and Hong Kong (33,000) dropped by one and six percent respectively.
DSEC said that a total of 902,000 guests checked into Macau hotels and guesthouses over the past month. This represents a two percent increase year-on-year.
The majority of guests are from mainland China (590,000), a 14 percent increase. The number of guests from Hong Kong (99,000), however, dropped by 22 percent.
The average length of stays held stable at 1.4 nights, while the average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses increased by two percentage points year-on-year to 90 percent, with 4-star hotels leading at 92 percent.
Over this year’s first eleven months, the number of hotel guests totalled 9,828,000, a one percent increase year-on-year. The average occupancy rate stood at 87 percent.
Macau had 98 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of November, providing a total of 28,000 guest rooms; this is a one percent increase over the past year. Five-star hotels accounted for 66 percent of the total supply, providing 18,000 rooms.