Package tour arrivals to gambling Mecca Macau took a big plunge in September, down by 20% year-on-year.
There were 23% fewer Mainland Chinese tourists on package tours during the month, while usually robust markets Taiwan and Japan also fell significantly, the Macau Statistics and Census Service said.
Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand also saw less package tourists than September 2015.
While the trend is moving away from package tours to more independent travel, there was a surprising 45% increase in package tourists from South Korea.
Overall inbound tourism is up with hotel occupancy rates growing 3.6% year-on-year to 82.1%.
Meanwhile gaming revenue was also up for the third straight month for October, thanks in no small part by China’s Golden Week holiday period.
Gross gaming revenue climbed 8.8% to 21.8 billion patacas ($2.73 billion) the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau said.
Nearly one million Chinese visitors came to Macau during the first seven days of Golden Week, the most for at least a decade.
"The strong beat of the monthly gaming revenue is very likely due to the decent performance of both the mass market and the VIP business, and it will improve market sentiment," Richard Huang, a gaming analyst with Nomura International told Bloomberg.
