More than 42.8 million people have traveled to China from overseas during the first six months this year, up 6.87 percent compared with the same period of last year.

At the same time, the foreign exchange income from tourism reached 8.5 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 10.68 percent over the previous year's figure for the same period, Tuesday's China Daily reported.

The number of tourists coming from the Macao Special Administrative Region increased by 34.2 percent in comparison with the figure of January-June period of last year, according to statistics released by the National Tourism Administration.

Many of them went to Zhuhai, a neighboring city of Macao, to do shopping and have dinner in this special economic zone in south China's Guangdong Province, bringing 700 million U.S. dollars of income to the province.

Tourists from Taiwan Province accounted for 1.7 million, up 15. 9 percent over the same time period of 2000.

In the first six months of this year, the number of tourists from Thailand and the Republic of Korea, two of China's top tourist source countries, increased by 28.8 and 19 percent respectively.

The main reasons for overseas travelers to come to China are sightseeing, vacation, and business conferences, China Daily reported, saying that the tourism trade will be further enhanced as a result of Beijing's successful bidding for the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

(Xinhua 07/24/2001)