MACAO, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- The total spending (excluding gaming expenses) of visitors in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in the fourth quarter of 2018 increased 1.3 percent year-on-year to 18.42 billion patacas and rose slightly 0.4 percent quarter-to-quarter, the SAR's statistics service said Friday.

Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that it was attributable to the increase of visitor arrivals in the fourth quarter. Total spending of overnight visitors and same-day visitors amounted to 14.95 billion patacas and 3.46 billion patacas, up 1.2 percent and 1.7 percent respectively year-on-year.

Per-capita spending of visitors in the fourth quarter decreased 11.0 percent year-on-year to 1,844 patacas, with that of overnight visitors (3,064 patacas) and same-day visitors (678 patacas) dropping 4.2 percent and 17.3 percent respectively, the DSEC said. (1 U.S. dollar equals to 8.08 patacas)