Macao recorded 3.43 million visitor arrivals in January and February, a year-on-year rise of 17.5 percent, according to official statistics issued here on Wednesday. The figures from the Statistics and Census Service (SCS) showed that the majority of visitors came from the Chinese mainland (56.3 percent), and some of them came from Hong Kong (31.3 percent) and Taiwan (6 percent).

The SCS attributed the strong visitor flow to the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays.

Macao, with its famed casino gaming industry, has long been a tourism destination in Asia.

The region, with a population of 480,000, set a record 18.71 million visitor arrivals in 2005 and the number is predicted by local analysts to exceed 21 million this year.
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