Number of Group Tourists to Macao Up Sharply in MayThe number of visitors to the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in tour groups was more than 158,000 in May this year, a sharp increase of 67.8 percent over that of May 1999, latest official figures show.About 70 percent of the visitors came from the inland areas of China and nearly 19 percent from Taiwan, according to figures released by the Statistics and Census Services of the Macao SAR government. In the first five months of the year, the number of visitors to Macao in tour groups exceeded 675,900 increasing by 57.8 percent over the same period last year. On the other hand, 8,791 Macao residents, out of a population of some 430,000, traveled to other places in tour groups in May, an increase of 26.4 percent over the same month of 1999. The three most favored destinations of tour for Macao residents were China's inland areas, China's Taiwan province and Thailand. During the first five months of this year as a whole, the number of Macao residents traveling to other places in tour groups rose 7.5 percent over the same period of last year. |
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