The special administrative region is now examining its own preparations to deal with an anticipated tourist boom after conducting a large tourism promotion campaign on the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan Province.

More than 3,500 individual travellers from Guangdong Province made free tours to the Macao Special Administrative Region over the past two weeks after the mainland piloted a facilitated individual travel (FIT) policy on Macao/Hong Kong-bound travels, according to the Macao Tourist Office (MTO).

Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, deputy director of the MTO, said yesterday the office will work closely with travel pass authorization departments on the mainland to monitor the tourist flow, which will soon witness a boom.

The office has also co-ordinated with the migration authority, port and police departments on ensuring an orderly passenger flow at Macao's entry checkpoints during the National Day "golden week" travel at the beginning of October.

Macao set aside a budget of 30 million pataca (US$3.6 million) on tourist promotion in May to recover the losses inflicted by the impact of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

The effort will be reinforced by the mainland's loosened restrictions on Macao/HK-bound travels in July. Four cities in Guangdong Province, which have land borders with Macao, were designated to pilot FIT to Macao and Hong Kong starting on July 28. They are Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan and Jiangmen. Beijing and Shanghai are expected to be added to the list along with four other cities in Guangdong Province before September.

Fernandes said Macao will become a non-stop stage for a series of tourist theme activities in the second half of this year, which will help attract more individual travellers there.

In addition to the traditional attractions of casinos, horse and dog racing, tourists will be drawn by the boisterous Asia-Pacific Cities Invitational Dragon Boat Races and a fireworks show in mid-September, the Macao International Music Festival in October and the 50th Macao Grand Prix races in November.

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