"Welcome to Macao, a home from home", this is a new slogan the Tourism Office of the Macao Special Administration Region (SAR) has put forward. You can see posters of this slogan everywhere in Macao now.

Apart from this, the Tourism Bureau is carrying out a series of programs of tourism promotion to boost tourism, a prop industry of Macao.

Tourism industry is a strong point of Macao's economic growth. In 1999, its revenue from tourism Macao account 38 per cent of its total output value, and 30 per cent of its population were engaged in the tourism industry. Last year, it received 7.4 million tourists, 17 times of the population of Macao. Its tourism bureau is targeting over eight million this year following 1996.

In view of that 90 per cent of the tourists of Macao come from the inland, Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan, the Macao Tourism Bureau will focus on promotion in the three areas said above. It is reported that tourists from Hong Kong took over half of the total tourist population of Macao last year.

In recent years, an increasing number of tourists are attracted by arts festival, motor prix, international music festival, golf opening tournament, etc. in Macao. The Macao Tourism Office will continue to hold relative promotion activities on the basis of these. Meanwhile, it will also hold a lot of colorful tourism activities to fresh Hong Kong tourists each time they come.

The Tourism Office also expresses wishes of strengthening cooperation with travel agencies and news organizations in mainland to further inland people's understanding about Macao.