Macao's hotels welcomed 292,249 guests in January, up 20.4 percent over the same month last year, thanks to a flush-in of tourists on the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday and individual travel from the mainland.

The Macao Statistics and Census Bureau on Wednesday pointed out that Macao's 69 hotels, including nine five-star hotels, recorded an average room occupancy rate of 66.8 percent in January, an year-on-year growth of 6.2 percentage points. Hotel guests stayed an average of just 1.21 nights.

The statistics showed that people from the mainland and Hong Kong made up 50.6 percent and 38.3 percent, respectively, of all hotel guests in January, while people from Taiwan had a share of only 2.9 percent.

The Macao Special Administrative Region hosted a total of 3.04 million hotel guests last year, which represented an epidemic-induced decrease of 3.5 percent over 2002.

Macao logged a monthly record of 1.33 million visitor arrivals in January, an increase of 35.1 percent over the same month last year, of which mainlanders made up 55.3 percent.

Macao's main tourist attractions include casinos, horse and grey hound racing and its unique Sino-Portuguese cultural, architectural and culinary heritage.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2004)