BRIEFS: Sydney – Nagasaki cruise with free stays in Macau, Hong Kong

“Spend one night in cosmopolitan Hong Kong and two nights in the gambling mecca of Macau for free as part of a new holiday package to Asia from Cruise1st. Departing 18 August 2015, the deal includes a flight from Hong Kong and one free night of pre-cruise accommodation at the Regal Oriental,” says a note from the cruise company. Travellers will then depart on a 7 night cruise visiting Xiamen (China), Jeju Island (South Korea) and Nagasaki (Japan) on Royal Caribbean’s “Voyager of the Seas.” The cruise is priced from USD2299 per person twin share from Sydney. Following the cruise, passengers will embark the TurboJET ferry from Hong Kong to Macau, where they will enjoy two free nights of post-cruise accommodation at the Regency Hotel in Macau before returning to Hong Kong for the flight home.

Overnight visitors to Hainan hit 40 million in 2014

Overnight tourists to South China’s Hainan Province exceeded 40 million in 2014, up 10.6 percent, the local statistics bureau said this week. The total included 39.9 million tourists from other parts of China and 661,400 tourists from abroad. Tourism generated 48.5 billion yuan (USD7.8b) in 2014, up 13.2 percent. Overnight foreign tourists to the province fell 12.6 percent year-on-year to hit 421,500. Visitors from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan also dropped 6.3 percent to 239,900, Xinhua reported.

Tourism showcases the city in Delhi

Macau tourism authorities (MGTO) is promoting the city as a leisure and business tourism destination at India’s main travel show, South Asia’s Travel and Tourism Exchange (SATTE) 2015, which opened yesterday in New Delhi. On the eve of the opening of the event, MGTO also held an inauguration of its office in the Indian capital with a new representative. This year, MGTO is SATTE’s solo “Feature Destination Partner”, with MGTO Deputy Director Cecilia Tse addressing attendees at both the opening ceremony and welcome dinner of the leading travel show. At the opening ceremony, Cecilia Tse noted that “India is an important international visitor source-market for Macau.”