Nearly 11,000 Chinese mainland tourists traveled to Taiwan during the eight-day National Day holiday, with an estimated spending of about 760 million New Taiwan dollars (23.56 million U.S. dollars).

Taiwan-based Economic Daily News quoted local tourism authorities as saying Monday that the number of mainland tourists in the island increased by 1.5 times over the figure of the same period last year.

More than 687,800 mainland tourists went to the island in the first three quarters this year, according to statistics revealed by the island's tourism authorities.

Taiwan's tourism bureau said the number had met their expectations and local tourism authorities were expecting the number to rise to exceed 800,000 by the end of this year.

The National Day holiday is usually a week-long holiday. This year it was extended to eight days as the Mid-Autumn Festival, also a public holiday, fell on Oct. 3.