Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Mr Chui Sai On hosted the opening and delivered speech at the Annual Marketing Meeting 2000 of Macau Government Tourist Office.

Mr Joao Manual Costa Antunes, Director of MGTO introduced the most recent status and development of Macau tourism to the 26 overseas representatives from 14 countries and regions. Topics on promotion policy for tourism in 2001 as well as the market positioning will be discussed in the meeting.

Mr Antunes presented and concluded the information and data of Macau's tourism in the past 8 months, including the visitor arrivals, distribution of tourist sources, hotel occupancy rate and length of stay.

He particularly pointed out the significant performance of Macau tourism in the past 8 months, reporting a total of 6,114,875 visitors from January to August. In August alone, 900,974 visitors came to Macau, which broke the record for the visitor arrivals for a single month.

Hong Kong and Mainland China are the two main sources of tourists for Macau. In August, 1,511,718 tourists from mainland visited Macau in the past 8 months, a rise of 44.77% from same period of last year. South Korea and Singapore are also catching up, with a 38.67% and 33.13% growth respectively.

Up to July 2000, there are 9,307 hotel rooms in Macau, a rise of 5.3% from 1999. The occupancy rate from January to July was 57.81%, a rise of 3.62%.

The statistic shows a breakdown of purpose of visit as follows: 60% of total visitors come for vacation, 10% for visiting relatives, 8% for business and 8% for gambling.

There are 14 overseas representative offices of MGTO over the world, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippine, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Brazil and Portugal. Each of the overseas representatives presented the situation of their market in the afternoon section.

Adjustment on the structure of the overseas marketing offices will also be addressed in the Annual Meeting. New offices will be set up in major cities in mainland with great potential, Indonesia and India.