Macao's visitor arrivals down 2 pct in March

Macao's visitor arrivals in package tours decreased by two percent year-on-year to 739,091 in March 2013, according to the figures released on Wednesday by the city's Statistics and Census Bureau.

The figure showed that visitor arrivals in package tours in March from Chinese mainland (533,170) increased by 0.39 percent year-on-year, with 199,991 coming from Guangdong Province, followed by those from Taiwan (45,703), Hong Kong (41,859) and South Korea (40,738).

Meanwhile, the number of local residents traveling outbound using services of travel agencies increased by 24 percent year-on-year to 117,828 in March. The Chinese mainland, South Korea and Taiwan were the most popular tour itineraries, according to the Bureau.

In the first quarter of 2013, visitors in package tours totaled 2,297,333, up by 11.8 percent year-on-year.