Macao's visitor arrivals down 0.6 pct in August

Macao's visitor arrivals in August this year reached 2,681,141, slightly down by 0.6 percent over the same month of 2011, according to figures released on Monday by the city's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

Of all the arrivals in August, 50.2 percent spent only one day. And the average length of stay of visitors decreased by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.0 day, the figures indicated.

Analyzed by place of residence, visitors from the Chinese mainland increased by 4.1 percent year-on-year to 1.63 million, 60. 9 percent of the total, of which 772,534 traveling to Macao under the Individual Visit Scheme, up by 10.6 percent year-on-year.

Visitors from South Korea (48,035) and Japan (42,506) increased by 6.4 percent and 9.4 percent year-on-year respectively, while those from Hong Kong (677,074) and Taiwan (106,263) registered decreases of 10.3 percent and 8.5 percent respectively.

Total visitor arrivals were 18,703,119 in the first eight months of 2012, up by 1.1 percent year-on-year, according to the DSEC.