Package tour visitors to Macao drop by 18.8pc in August

Package tour visitors to Macao dropped by 18.8 per cent year-on-year to 635,000 in August 2019, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistics department said on Monday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed that the visitors on package tours from Chinese mainland (499,000), South Korea (36,000), Hong Kong SAR (7,700) and China's Taiwan region (60,000) fell by 18.1 per cent, 35.0 per cent, 26.5 per cent and 6.0 per cent respectively.

In the first eight months of 2019, number of package tour visitors totalled 6.38 million, representing a shrinking of 9.8 per cent year-on-year, the DSEC report added.

Outbound Macao's residents using travel agency services totalled 156,000 in August, down by 1.7 per cent year-on-year, reports Xinhua.

Macao's residents travelling under own arrangements fell by 8.4 per cent to 105,000, with those visiting Chinese mainland (38,000), Hong Kong SAR (29,000) and China's Taiwan region (13,000) decreasing by 5.4 per cent, 21.4 per cent and 20.4 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, Macao's residents travelling on package tours rose by 15.4 per cent to 51,000 on account of a 12.7 per cent increase in those visiting Chinese mainland (36,000).

In the first eight months of 2019, outbound Macao's residents using travel agency services totalled 1.20 million, up by 2.7 per cent year-on-year.