Macao Daily News published headline news on February 11, stating that despite that slowdown of the global tourism industry, Macau was one of the few destinations in the world that achieved a good tourism performance in 2008.

Macau's academics say that though the outlook for the global tourism industry is not so optimistic, there are still a lot of opportunities in Macau's tourism market compared with those of the surrounding regions, since Macau benefits from its proximity to its source markets. The academics believe that even though the region's tourismnumbers will decline in the year, the decrease will be relatively small.

According to a report recently released by the World Tourism Organization, the number of tourists for the global market increased by 2% last year, and only a few the destinations achieved increases over the year. The report shows that though there was a general decline in tourism in 2008, some regions, including Honduras, Nigaragua, Panama, Uruguay, South Korea, Macau, Indonesia, India, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey achieved very good results.

WTO estimates that the international tourism industry will still see a decrease of up to 2% in 2009 with the Americas and Europe mostly affected. However, WTO said that the Asia Pacific region would see an increase in tourism although the increase might be very small compared with the previous years.

(China Hospitality News February 13, 2009)