Group Tourists to Macao Rise in 2000The number of visitors to China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in tour groups was 1.49 million in the year 2000, 41.4 percent over that in the previous year, the latest official statistics show.In December only, the number of group tourists increased 35.4 percent to reach 109,210. About 63.2 percent of them came from the inland areas of China and 20 percent from the Taiwan region, according to the figures released by the Statistics and Census Services of the Macao SAR government. On the other hand, 15,189 Macao residents, out of a population of some 430,000, traveled to other places in groups in December. And the number rose by 66 percent over that in the same month of 1999. The most favored destination for Macao residents was China's inland areas, which attracted 81.4 percent of the total. The other two favored destinations were Thailand and the Republic of Korea. In 2000 as a whole, the number of Macao residents traveling to other places in tour groups rose 23 percent on an annual basis. |
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