The average occupancy rate of hotels in Macao decreased notably by 13.5 percentage points year-on-year to 59.4 percent in May 2009, with four-star and five-star hotels leased at 61.7 percent and 61.3 percent respectively, according to the figures released on Monday by Macao's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

The DSEC figures indicated that a total of 444,912 guests checked into local hotels and similar establishments in May, down by 18.2 percent year-on-year, with the majority of guests coming from the Chinese mainland (47 percent) and Hong Kong (24.3 percent) . The average length of stay of hotel guests increased by 0.14 night year-on-year to 1.49 nights.

Meanwhile, the number of guest rooms available in local hotel sector increased by 8 percent from a year earlier to 17,529 rooms in the period, according to the DSEC.

In the first five months of 2009, the cumulative number of hotel guests decreased by 1.4 percent to 2.66 million, and visitor- guests of hotels accounted for 61.7 percent of the total number of tourists, up from 56.3 percent in the corresponding period of 2008, the DSEC said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 14, 2009)