The average hotel occupancy rate in Macao decreased by 7.1 percentage points to 76.7 percent, with five-star hotels leading at 80.7 percent, according to the latest figures from the region's Statistics and Census Service ( DSEC).

The figures also showed that the total number of guest rooms available in Macao's hotel sector grew by 5.1 percent from a year earlier to 16,577 rooms in August 2008.

Meanwhile, some 546,903 guests checked into local hotels and similar establishments in the period, up by 3.6 percent year-on- year, with the majority of the guests coming from the Chinese mainland (43.8 percent) and Hong Kong (29.3 percent).

In addition, the average length of stay of hotel guests extended by 0.2 nights to 1.5 nights in August, the DSEC said.

In the first eight months of 2008, total number of hotel guests reached 4,342,112, up by 17.6 percent over the same period of 2007, and visitor-guests staying in hotels accounted for 43.2 percent of the total number of tourists, up from 42.7 percent in the corresponding period last year, according to the DSEC.

(Xinhua News Agency October 14, 2008)