Posted at 9:24 a.m., Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Mainland visitor arrivals set record for May
Advertiser Staff
The tourism industry continued to surge in May, with solid increases in visitor arrivals and spending, the State Department of Tourism and Economic Development reported today.The total number of tourists visiting the state rose 1.7 percent to 576,996, led by 425,141 domestic arrivals, a record for the month. Visitor spending rose to $887 million, a 3.4 percent increase from a year earlier.
For the first five months of the year, visitor arrivals totaled 2.97 million, a 2 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. Total visitor spending rose 6.6 percent to $4.71 billion for the period.
The Japanese market continued to be a weak point for the tourism industry. Arrivals from Japan fell to 109,491, a 10.9 percent decline from May 2005. For the first five months of the year, Japanese arrivals were down 7.8 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.
One bright spot in the international market was Canada, with May arrivals rising 12.1 percent in May to 16,013.
