The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government Tourist Office (MGTO) Monday announced the appointment of IntraREPS, an Indonesian tourism consulting firm, as its first representative in Indonesia, in a bid to boost tourist arrivals from the Southeast Asian nation.

This is the 17th MGTO office around the world. To tap the Indonesian market, MGTO also hosted tourism production seminar and press conference in Indonesia on Monday.

MGTO Director Joao Manuel Costa Antunes said the Indonesian market is one of the potential markets in Asia and with the assistance of the appointed representative which has extensive experience and network in the travel and tourism industry in Indonesia, will help to promote and further expand the South East Asian source market for Macao, according to the press release from the MGTO.

This was part of the efforts made by the MGTO to diversify Macao's international market profile, which still heavily depends on the Chinese mainland.

The direct airline launched in 2006 between Macao and Indonesia almost doubled the number of Indonesian visitor arrivals to Macao in a year. Statistics from the MGTO showed that the SAR logged over 187,752 visitor arrivals from Indonesia last year, with an outstanding year-on-year increase of 40.72 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2009)