In the fourth quarter of 2007, 23 hotel projects were under construction while 33 others were subject to examination and approval by the authorities, the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau of Macao SAR said Sunday.

The statistics released by the bureau showed that those hotels being constructed in the fourth quarter of 2007 took up a combined area of 3.18 million square meters and were estimated to provide up to 24,000 hotel rooms in the island city of only 520,000 residents.

Among the hotels being constructed in the period, four of them feature 1,000 to 2,000 rooms and one boasts nearly 10,000.

When the Venetian Macao casino resort opened last August, it alone has added 3,000 rooms to the local hotel market. However, this is just the beginning. When the construction at the Venetian hotel complex, which is by far the biggest in Asia, completes, there will be 10 hotels and service apartments on the ground, providing a total of 20,000 rooms for guest accommodations.

(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2008)