Macao's visitor arrivals up 14.4 pct in August

Macao's visitor arrivals in August reached 2,698,003, up 14.4 percent over the same month of 2010, according to figures released on Friday by the city's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). The figure marked a new record of visitor arrivals in a single month during the Summer holidays, with same-day visitors (1,411, 916) accounting for 52.3 percent of total visitor arrivals and 838, 919 coming from the Chinese mainland, said the DSEC. Analyzed by place of residence, visitors from the Chinese mainland increased by 24.3 percent year-on-year to 1.57 million, 58.2 percent of the total, of which 698,625 traveling to Macao under the Individual Visit Scheme. Visitors from Taiwan (116,152), South Korea (45,132) and Japan (38,853) increased by 0.3 percent, 25.1 percent and 4.4 percent respectively, while those from Hong Kong (754,636) decreased by 0. 5 percent. Total visitor arrivals were 18,495,526 in the first eight months of 2011, up by 10.4 percent year-on-year, according to the DSEC. Analyzed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by sea, by land and by air totaled 7,350,431, 10,028,878 and 1,116,217 respectively in the first eight months of 2011, up 6.4 percent, 14. 7 percent and 1.4 percent year-on-year respectively.