Macao witnesses smooth tourist flow on National Day travel

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 03, 2003

Macao witnesses smooth tourist flow on National Day travel

About 100,000 passengers arrived in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) on the first day of the National Day vacation Wednesday, according to figures collected by Macao's entry points.

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About 100,000 passengers arrived in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) on the first day of the National Day vacation Wednesday, according to figures collected by Macao's entry points.

The golden week travel is the first travel spree anticipated to heat the atmosphere on the tourist market after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in the mainland in the first half year. Boosted by China's facilitated individual travel (FIT) policy on Macao/Hong Kong-bound travels, which was initiatedin August, the National Day vacation that falls in the first week of October will help bring some 1.6 million tourists from the mainland to Macao, said Joao Mannuel Costa Antunes, director of the Macao Tourist Office (MTO).

The office foresaw a 15 percent increase of tourist arrivals during the vacation over the same period of last year. While influenced by the boom of individual travels, group travels to Macao will decline by some 20 percent.

In order to ensure a smooth passenger flow at Macao's entry checkpoints, MTO and the tourist authority in neighboring Guangdong Province, which was designated by the central governmentto pilot the FIT policy along with Beijing and Shanghai, have jointly established an "early warning system" to direct the tourist flow.

Under the coordination, Macao is committed to provide Guangdongwith a daily update of data on the hotel reservation rate and tourist arrivals during the National Day vacation.

Macao has issued directories to encourage passengers to enter the region through Hengqin and Wanzai land ports of entry in Zhuhai City, Guangdong, so as to reduce the pressure at the Gongbei Checkpoint in Zhuhai, which is the largest land customs linking the mainland and Macao.

MTO forecast that the climax of the National Day travel will come on Oct. 4, when the daily passenger flow at the Gongbei will break 200,000, equal to the maximum capacity of the custums.

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