The national capital Beijing received a record 3.155 million tourists from overseas last year, a jump of 70.4 percent over the previous year, the latest statistics have shown.

The figures include 2.681 million foreign tourists, a year on year rise of 75.6 percent, and 474,000 visitors from China's Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan Province, an increase of 46 percent on a yearly basis, according to the Beijing Municipal Statistical Bureau on Monday.

Tourists from Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States made up 42 percent of the total number of overseas tourists to China, travelers from Britain, France and Germany accounted for17 percent and those from Southeast Asian countries comprise nine percent.

Visitors from China's Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan accounted for15 percent of the total.

The number of outbound Chinese tourists has increased by an annual average of 51.3 percent over recent years, with the number hitting the current 514,000 yearly from former 12,000 a decade ago.

Beijing hosted 4.06 million domestic tourists last year, up a year average of 10.4 percent since 2000.

The city's tourism income has hefted to 3.33 billion yuan (US$403 million) last year from 1.6 billion yuan (US$193.47 million) in 2000.

(Xinhua News Agency January 18, 2005)