MACAO, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Macao's tourist arrivals in the first half of 2018 increased by 8.0 percent year-on-year, with overnight visitors rising by 8.3 percent, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistics service said recently.

Latest report from Macao SAR Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) said on Monday that in the first half of 2018, visitor arrivals totaled 16.81 million, up by 8.0 percent year-on-year; overnight visitors (8.77 million) rose by 8.3 percent while same-day visitors (8.04 million) rose by 7.8 percent.

The average length of stay of visitors held steady year-on-year at 1.2 days, with that of overnight visitors (2.2 days) rising by 0.1 day and that of same-day visitors (0.2 day) remaining unchanged.

Visitors from Chinese mainland (11.71 million) increased by 13.3 percent year-on-year in the first half this year, while those from the Hong Kong SAR (3.0 million) dropped by 3.7 percent.

Visitors from South Korea (423,952) dropped by 2.2 percent. Meanwhile, visitors from the United States (96,586) recorded year-on-year growth, whereas those from Australia (44,776), Canada (36,859) and Britain (28,195) declined.

The DSEC added that visitor arrivals in June increased by 9.4 percent year-on-year to 2.6 million. Overnight visitors rose by 7.2 percent year-on-year to 1.44 million last month, while same-day visitors grow by 12.4 percent to 1.16 million.