MACAO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Visitors to Macao on package tours in 2018 totalled 9,096,000, up by 5.5 percent year-on-year, the special administrative region's statistic service said here Wednesday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service showed that in 2018, visitors to Macao on package tours from the mainland stood at 7,103,000, growing by 2.6 percent year-on-year.

Visitors on package tours from South Korea and China's Taiwan reached 616,000 and 696,000, increasing 28.3 percent and 53.8 percent respectively.

In December 2018, package tour visitors totalled 917,000, up by 2.3 percent month-to-month or 1.6 percent year-on-year. Package tour visitors from South Korea (61,000) and China's Taiwan (62,000) surged by 39.0 percent and 23.4 percent respectively year-on-year, whereas those from the mainland (733,000) decreased by 1.2 percent.

In 2018, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 1,579,000, up by 13.5 percent year-on-year. The number of residents travelling on package tours decreased by 6.1 percent to 527,000, with those visiting the mainland rising by 2.4 percent to 385,000.

In December 2018, outbound residents using services of travel agencies grew by 13.4 percent year-on-year to 148,000. The number of residents travelling on package tours fell by 8.0 percent to 50,000.