Source: Xinhua

01-15-2009 09:52

MACAO, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Despite the global financial crisis, Macao, Asia's gambling Mecca, saw its visitor arrivals surpass the30 million mark for the whole of 2008, registering an increase of 11 percent over 2007, the Special Administrative Region's (SAR) Government Tourist Office (MGTO) announced on Wednesday.

The Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan continued to be the three largest visitor source markets last year, with the visitor arrivals from the mainland rising by 17 percent to 17.5 million, said MGTO director Joao Manuel Costa Auntunes at a press conference held here on Wednesday.

Both the number of overnight stay and overnight guests from January to November 2008 has exceeded those of 2007, amounting to 12.97 million and 5.92 million respectively, according to the MGTO statistics. The average length of stay has also increased to 1.5 nights.

On the regional cooperation front, Antunes said that MGTO has signed tourism cooperation protocol with its counterparts in neighboring mainland city Shenzhen and province Guangdong.

As for international visitors, the top ten visitor generating markets are mainly from Asia, of which arrivals from Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea, Japan and Malaysia grew 81 percent, 41 percent, 30 percent, 24 percent, 23 percent and 12 percent respectively, the figures showed.

Antunes said diversification of tourism products and source markets are the main objectives for 2009.

To achieve the goals, MGTO planned to advertise local tourism with a series of promotional events in various targeted markets, and work with airlines to launch more direct flight connections with other foreign cities.

The island city, with a population of merely 550,000, has a total of 31 casinos by far, and the development of tourism is part of the SAR government's long-term effort to diversify its economy, which still heavily depends on the gaming industry.

Click for more news in Biz China>>

Editor:Qin Yongjing