Package tour visitors dive 34 pct in Feb

Some 569,900 visitors arrived in the Macau SAR on package tours in February, a drastic drop of 34 per cent year-on-year, according to data released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). Data from DSEC indicates that package tour visitors from Mainland China totalled 438,000, decreasing 36.7 per cent year-on-year, while those from the Republic of Korea (34,000) and Taiwan (40,000) dropped 18.8 per cent and 24.2 per cent, respectively. In the first two months of 2016, visitors on package tours totalled 1,139,000, down 33.2 per cent year-on-year. Occupancy rate drop According to DSEC, there were 106 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of February 2016, an increase of 8 year-on-year. The number of guestrooms totalled 32,000, up 4,000 or 13.9 per cent year-on-year, with rooms of 5-star hotels (20,000) and 4-star hotels (8,000) together accounting for 87.5 per cent of the total. Some 872,000 guests checked into local hotels and guesthouses in February 2016, up 15.9 per cent year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China increased by 9.1 per cent to 562,000, while those from the Republic of Korea (23,000), Hong Kong (130,000) and Taiwan (36,000) recorded double-digit growth. The February data also shows that the average length of stay of guests held stable at 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses was 78.6 per cent, down 1.8 percentage points year-on-year; 5-star hotels had the highest occupancy rate at 80.5 per cent, down 3.2 percentage points, while the rate for 4-star hotels rose 5.1 percentage points to 79.7 per cent.