Group Tourists to Macao Decrease in February

The number of visitors to China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in tour groups was 95, 960 in February, down 26.1 percent than that of the same month in the previous year, the latest official statistics show.

This was mainly attributed to the fact that this year the Spring Festival, the most important traditional holiday for the Chinese, fell on January, while in last year it was in February, tourism authorities note.

Of the figure, 58,720 people came from the inland areas of China. Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong were also major tourist sources for Macao, according to the figures released by the Statistics and Census Services of the Macao SAR government.

On the other hand, 12,990 Macao residents, out of a population of some 438,000, traveled to other places in groups in February, 4.6 percent down year-on-year.

The most favored destination for Macao residents was China's inland areas, which attracted 87.8 percent of the total. The other two favored destinations were Thailand and Taiwan.

Macao reported 206,050 tourist arrivals in the first two months of this year, down 12.8 percent on a yearly basis.

People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/