Macao registered 551,010 visitor arrivals in package tours in March 2009, an increase of 30.9 percent over the same period of last year, according to the figures released on Wednesday from the city's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

The figures showed that visitors mainly came from the Chinese mainland (437,565) and Taiwan (26,650), increasing substantially by 43.5 percent and 39.4 percent year-on-year respectively, while those from Hong Kong (19,945) decreased by 16.3 percent.

Visitor arrivals in package tours grew by 14.3 percent over the same period of 2008 to 1.37 million in the first quarter of 2009, according to the DSEC figures.

As regards Macao residents traveling outbound in package tours, the number dropped by 17.7 percent year-on-year to 17,004 in March. Chinese mainland (75.9 percent), Taiwan, and Japan were the most popular tour itineraries.

In the first quarter of 2009, local residents traveling in package tours decreased by 10.8 percent over the same period of 2008 to 47,499, the DSEC said.