Tourism | Package tour visitors down one-third

Visitors on package tours totaled 541,000 in May, down by 34.2 percent year-on-year and 8.5 percent month-to-month, according to information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
Package tour visitors from mainland China (420,000) tumbled by 36 percent year-
on-year. Similarly, those from South Korea (26,000) and Taiwan (29,000) dropped by 29.6 percent and 40.9 percent, respectively.
For the first five months of this year, visitors on package tours totaled 2,833,000, down by more than one-third over the previous year.
Meanwhile, outbound residents using the services of travel agencies totaled 98,000 in May, down by 21.5 percent year-
on-year and yet up by 5.6 percent month-to-month.  Residents traveling on package tours decreased by 28 percent year-on-year to 37,000 with those traveling to mainland China and South Korea significantly falling 36 percent and 21.2 percent respectively, whole those to Hong Kong and Taiwan increased 44.7 percent and 19.2 percent.
From January to May inclusive, the number of outbound resident using services of travel agencies totaled 503,000 down by 17.1 percent year-on-year.
A total of 932,000 guests (up 9.2 percent year-on-
year) checked into Macau’s 105 hotels and guesthouses in May 2016. Guests from mainland China (592,000) increased by 8.3 percent, while those from Hong Kong (129,00) and Taiwan (36,000) registered double-digit growth, at 14.3 percent and 34 percent, respectively.
The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses was 79.3 percent last month, down by 0.6 percentage points year-on-year. At the same time, the occupancy rate of 4-star hotels (84.5 percent) and 3-star hotels (82.7 percent) increased by 4.5 and 3.7 percentage points respectively.
In the first five months of 2016, the number of guests of hotels & guesthouses totaled 4,510,000, up by 12.1 percent year-on-year. The average occupancy rate stood at 78 percent and the average length of stay was 1.4 nights, down by 1.4 percentage points and 0.1 nights respectively.