The total number of visitor arrivals to China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) increased by 40 percent year-on-year to a historical high record of 16.67 million in 2004.

Figures released by the Statistics and Census Service on Friday showed that visitors came mainly from China's mainland and Hong Kong, which corresponded to 57 percent and 30 percent of the total arrivals.

There were 3.5 million mainland visitors traveling to Macao under China's facilitated individual travel scheme on Macao-bound tours. Meanwhile, the number of visitors came in group tours leaped to 2.5 million, up 64 percent over 2003.

The majority of the visitors came in Macao via the SAR's land checkpoints, which made up 57 percent of the total, and those arrived by sea or by air accounted for 22 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

The bureau's statistics also showed that the number of Macao's outbound travels in package tours went up 35 percent over 2003 to 211,966 in 2004. Meanwhile, 286,471 Macao residents traveled under their own arrangements with the assistance of travel agencies, representing an increase of 37 percent over 2003.

Compared with 2003, the number of overnight guests increased by30 percent to 3.9 million. The average occupancy rate of hotels in the city was 75.6 percent in 2004, a jump of 11.3 percentage points from the previous year. The average length of stay of overnight guests was 1.22 nights, down 0.04 night.

Meanwhile, the per-capita spending of visitors in 2004 was 1,633 patacas (US$204), up 8 percent over 2003. Travel spending of mainland visitors topped the list with 2,991 patacas (US$374) per-capita.

(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2005)