MACAO, March 3 (Xinhua) -- The visitors to Macao on package tours fell by 4.6 percent year-on-year to 766,000 in January, owing to a decrease in the number of mainland visitors, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistic service said here on Sunday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed that mainland visitors on package tour decreased by 8.4 percent to 591,000, but those from South Korea (66,000), Hong Kong SAR (16,000) and China's Taiwan (56,000) increased by 31.7 percent, 17.5 percent and 14.2 percent respectively.

Outbound Macao residents using services of travel agencies rose by 7.5 percent year-on-year to 130,000 in January. Among them, residents travelling under own arrangements expanded by 22.5 percent to 93,000. Meanwhile, Macao residents travelling on package tours decreased by 18.0 percent to 36,000.

The report said that there were 116 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of January, an increase of 2 percent year-on-year. Number of guest rooms grew by 4.9 percent year-on-year to 39,000, with five-star hotel rooms rising by 9.5 percent to 24,000.

The number of guests of hotels and guesthouses in January rose by 5.6 percent year-on-year to 1,246,000. Guests coming from the Chinese mainland (896,000) and South Korea (54,000) increased by 9.5 percent and 4.1 percent respectively, while those from Hong Kong SAR (96,000) and China's Taiwan (38,000) dropped by 5.8 percent and 5.6 percent respectively.

The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses stood at 93.0 percent, up by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year. The average occupancy rates of five-star (94.9 percent) and three-star hotels (94.7 percent) grew by 1.3 percentage points and 4.3 percentage points respectively, whereas the rate of four-star hotels (90.5 percent) fell by 1.4 percentage points.

The average length of stay of guests went up by 0.1 night to 1.5 nights year-on-year.