Over 130,000 visitors from the Chinese mainland are expected to flush in Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) under the mainland's facilitated individual travel scheme (FIT) on Macao-bound tours during the Chinese New Year, said a senior tourist official on Monday.

The Macao SAR government would make an all-out endeavor to deal with the large passenger flow during the mainland's "Golden Week Travel" in the weeklong Chinese New Year holiday, said Manuel Pires, deputy director of the Macao Tourist Office in a joint press conference held by the Tourist Office, the Health Service, the Customs and the Public Security Police Bureau.

According to official statistics, since the FIT scheme was launched on July 28, 2003, over 450 million tourists were benefited and made tours to Macao by the end of Jan. 31 this year.

The Tourist Office announced to activate a notification mechanism with its counterpart in Guangdong Province during the holiday reporting the number of tourist arrivals to Macao as well as hotel room rate and price on a daily basis, which is expected to help control the passenger flow.

The small gaming city with a mere land coverage of less than 30square kilometers is under a heavy pressure from handling vacation travelers during China's three long holidays, namely the Chinese New Year in February, the Labors' Day in May and the National Day in October. With a population of 450,000, it host over 16 million tourist arrivals last year with nearly half of them from China's mainland.

The concerned departments vowed to stay on high alert on the disease-control and security measures at customs during the travel spree. The police headquarters and the customs authorities have asked all staff to remain on post during the holiday in order to ensure a swift passenger flow and social security.

(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2005)