Macau, China, 20 Jan – Around 25 million visitors travelled to Macau in 2010, which represented an increase of 15 percent against 2009, with visitors from china accounting for 53 percent of the new record, the director of the Macau Tourism Office, said Wednesday.

João Costa Antunes said that last year Macau had received 24.96 million visitors, of which 21.98 million (growth of 15.7 percent) were from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

China contributed 53 percent of visitors, Hong Kong 29.9 percent and Taiwan 5.2 percent, with the remaining 2.9 million people, or 11.9 percent, from international markets, which saw growth of 8.6 percent.

With a focus on the international conventions market and its status as the world’s gambling capital, Macau received 24.2 million visitors from Asia, 297,000 from America, 244,000 from Europe, 127,000 from Oceania and 31,000 from Africa and other markets.

After the visitors spent US$17.1 billion in 2009, between January and September of 2010 Macau saw a year on year rise in visitor spending of 52.2 percent to US$18.2 billion.

Most spending by visitors – US$15.9 billion – was in the gaming and gambling sector, followed by spending on accommodation – US$503 million – and in other expenses – US$1.8 billion.

At the end of last year Macau had 62 hotels and 31 inns providing 20,9888 rooms and 50 percent of the territory’s overnight visitors stayed in five-star units. (macauhub)