Macao's tourism business sees double-digit growth

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 ◆ Macao's tourism business sees double-digit growth

Macao posted a double-digit growth in the number of tourist arrivals in the first ten months of the year, buoyed by a huge influx of China's inlanders.

The Statistics and Census Services said recently that tourist arrivals in the Special Administrative Region (SAR) jumped a year-on-year 10.6 percent to 9.46 million from January to October.

Hong Kong remained the largest tourist source for Macao, bringing 4.31 million visitors to Macao, but the figure dipped a year-on-year 1.6 percent.

China's inland was catching up quickly by providing 3.33 million tourists, making up 35.2 percent of the total. The number of tourists from Taiwan also reached 13.7 percent of the total.

Industry insiders note that the city's tourism industry has benefited greatly from a sharp rise of travel agencies allowed by the China National Tourism Administration to manage the SAR-bound tours.

At present, the Macao Government Tourist Office is seeking to make tourists stay longer and spend more as the number of same-day visitors still reached 43 percent of the total in the ten-month period.

Tourists to the SAR hit a record of more than ten million in 2001 and the figure for this year is set to be even larger in line with estimates from local officials and market watchers.