Macao Special Administrative Region pocketed over US$3 billion from Chinese mainland tourists, as the number of those travelers soared by a yearly increase of 66 percent to 9.5 million in 2004.

According to the statistics from the Macao Statistics and Census Bureau on Saturday, mainland tourists contributed 27 billion patacas (about US$3.37 billion) to Macao's tourism income, which was estimated based on the per-capita consumption of3,290 patacas (US$411) recorded in the fourth quarter of last year. The sum represented a surge of 11.6 percent from that logged in the same period of the previous year.

The Chinese mainland provides the main source of tourists to Macao. The bureau's statistics showed that the fourth quarter witnessed the largest inflow of mainland tourists, which amounted to 2.57 million.

The tourist income contributed by mainland travelers during the period was also at the highest level of last year reaching 8.4 billion patacas (US$1.05 billion).

Meanwhile, tourists from Hong Kong, which ranked as the No. 2 source market for Macao's tourism, contributed 4.8 billion patacas (US$600 million) to Macao's tourist income last year. The averaged per-capita consumption of Hong Kong tourists was around 1,000 patacas (US$125).

The bureau's counting showed that based on the averaged tourist consumption of all travelers to Macao, Macao earned 25.4 billion patacas (US$3 billion) last year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2005)