Visitor arrivals keep surging

In just nine months, Macau has nearly surpassed its number of visitor arrivals for all of 2006: 19.49 million up to the end of September, according to official statistics.

Moreover, this figure was recorded before the October golden holiday week, which is always a busy time for Macau.

October is expected to be a huge contributor to the full-year target, as the Venetian staged the NBA China Games and began its exhibitions on October 18-20.

An estimated 26 million visitors are forecast to travel to Macau this year, up from 21.99 million last year.

Not surprisingly, a majority of Macau's visitors are from mainland China, with 10.65 million arrivals between January and September, followed by Hong Kong and Taiwanese travelers.

In September alone, Macau received 2.26 million visitors, up 29.6 per cent over the same period last year. The daily average arrivals for September was 75,531.

Just 5.5 per cent of visitors arrived by air while 33.5per cent arrived by sea and 61 per cent by land via Zhuhai.