The figure nearly doubled the average for all visitors to the city, which stood at 1,370 patacas (171.25 dollars), the Statistics and Census Services said Tuesday.

Visitors from Hong Kong, the largest tourist provider for Macao,spent a paltry 910 patacas (120.25 dollars) each on average, the least among all tourists.

Spending of overnight tourists reached 1,772 patacas (221.5 dollars), compared with 476 patacas (59.5 dollars) from same-day visitors, the agency said.

Excluding spending in casinos, tourists poured much of their money into shopping, catering and hotel accommodation. Their favorite were jewelry, timepieces and Chinese food and sweet.

As inland tourist arrivals have surged to about one-third of the total, the Macao Government Tourist Office selected dozens of travel agencies with sound reputation to host them, intensified training on tour guides and kept cracking down on illegal businessin the market.

( Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2002)