The number of hotel rooms in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will double the present capacity in three to five years as the city's tourist hardware facility could hardly accommodate the rising demand.

Joao Manuel Costa Antunes, director of the Macao Government Tourist Office (MGTO) said at a press conference Wednesday that there are 25 hotel construction projects listed for completion in three to five years adding 10,698 hotel rooms.

Currently, there are 43 hotels and 33 guesthouses in Macao offering a total of 10,502 rooms. The averaged occupancy rate stood at 81.24 percent in 2004, which was 10.69 percent up from the previous year.

Antunes said that among last year's 16.67 million visitor arrivals, only 49.92 percent of the visitors stayed in Macao overnight with the length of stay averaging 1.22 days.

He disclosed that the government has received many applications for hotel licenses and land concession for building hotel facilities, which will help increase the total number of hotel rooms by 16,750 in seven years.

(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2005)