Macao recorded around 457,000 visitor arrivals during the week-long International Labor Day holidays, a year-on-year rise of 10 percent, according to the official statistics issued on Wednesday.

The figures released by the Tourist Office (TO) showed that some 63 percent of the visitors came from the Chinese mainland.

The average occupancy rate of three to five-star hotels during the seven-day Golden Week, starting from May 1, stood at 77.73 percent, a year-on-year drop of 0.41 percent, the figures showed.

Local analysts due the slide-down of the occupancy rate mainly to the price hike of the hotel rooms, which amounted to 793.08 patacas (US$99.13), 27.19 percent higher over the same period in 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency May 10, 2006)