HKTA Sets New Forecast of 12.5 Million Visitors for 2000The Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA) revised its forecast of the tourist arrivals in 2000 to 12.5 million, a 10.4 percent increase over 1999, prompted by the steady growth in tourism for the first half of this year.Latest figures announced Monday by HKTA show that total arrivals for the first six months of 2000 reached 6,186,562, an increase of 15.7 percent over the same period of 1999. Furthermore, noticeable improvement was seen in tourism earnings in the first half of this year with the total visitor receipts reaching 30.1 billion HK dollars (3.85 billion US dollars), up 12.4 percent over the same period of last year. Growth in visitor arrivals in June was up 16.3 percent to 1,007,626, according to HKTA. Hotel occupancy figures for June averaged 80 percent for all category of accommodation. For almost every month of 2000 so far, visitor arrivals has consistently reached the one million mark. The HKTA sees a similar performance pattern for the fourth quarter, traditionally Hong Kong's prime tourism season. |
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