Macao registered 450,017 visitor arrivals in package tours in April this year, an increase of 27.2 percent year-on-year, according to the figures released on Thursday by the city's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

The figures showed that visitors from the Chinese Mainland (301,892) and Southeast Asia (45,373) surged by 24.1 percent and 146.8 percent year-on-year respectively in April, while those from Hong Kong (31,339) dropped by 15.6 percent.

As for the first four months of 2008, visitors arrived in package tours grew by 16.9 percent over the same period of last year to 1,647,576, according to the DSEC.

Meanwhile, the number of Macao residents traveling outbound in package tours in April decreased by 14.6 percent year-on-year to 17,084, and the Chinese Mainland (75.7 percent), China's Taiwan (6 percent) and Thailand (5.8 percent) were three of the most popular tour destinations, according to the DSEC.