The number of tourists traveling Macao in groups reached 186,445 in January, up 17.4 percent from the same period of last year.

According to the statistics released by the Macao Statistics and Census Bureau on Monday, 147,469 of the total visitors were from the Chinese mainland, up 12.5 percent from the corresponding period of last year.

Meanwhile, the number of group tourists from China's Taiwan surged by 41.6 percent year-on-year to 15,046 in January.

The bureau's statistics also showed that the number of hotel rooms reached 9,630 accommodating a total of 302,431 guests in January. The averaged hotel room occupancy rate stood at 67 percent, while that in three-star tourist hotels averaged 74 percent during the period.

(Xinhua News Agency March 15, 2005)