Macau package tour numbers on the rise in April

The number of visitors arriving in Macau as part of a package tour rose by 14.5% to 677,000 in April with strong growth recorded from the key tourist destinations of mainland China, Korea and Taiwan.

According to latest figures from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the number of package tour arrivals from mainland China in April was 536,000 – a 13.8% year-on-year increase and comprising 79.2% of all package tour arrivals to Macau.

Korean package visitation grew 41.3% to 41,000 while Taiwan was up 13.2% to 32,000.

The Easter weekend played its part by falling in April this year as opposed to March in 2016, with the number of Macau residents travelling elsewhere via travel agencies also rising 20.5% to 112,000 year-on-year.

The number of guest rooms in Macau grew 13.4% year-on-year to 37,000 of which 22,000 are now 5-star, accounting for 60.3%. Nevertheless, the average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses went up by 6.4 percentage points year-on-year to 86.1%, with that of 4-star hotels (89.8%) rising by 6.1%. The rates of 3-star (86.2%) and 5-star hotels (85.8%) also grew by 2.4 percentage points and 6.5 percentage points respectively year-on-year.

The average length of stay of guests stood at 1.4 nights, up by 0.1 nights.

In the first four months of 2017, guests of hotels and guesthouses totaled 4.12 million, up by 14.6% year-on-year, with the average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses at 83.8%, up by 5.%.