The tourism sector of China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) generated over 13.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, ranking 17th in global tourism markets, the Macao Daily Times reported on Wednesday, quoting statistics from the World Tourism Organization.

The SAR ranks behind Switzerland (14.4 billion dollars) in the organization's world chart, but its tourism revenue exceeded those of Holland, Mexico, Sweden, and Belgium, according to the daily. The United States market registered the highest revenue volume in the international tourism with 110.1 billion dollars.

The World Tourism Organization considers tourism revenues as the amount of money spent by foreign visitors in accommodation, food and beverages, local transportation, entertainment and shopping, excluding the expenses made with international transportation, which are reported separately.

In terms of visitors, Macao also occupies the 22nd place in the organization's ranking, with 10.6 million visitors in 2008. France leads in the visitor ranking with 79.3 million visitors.

The daily quoted the organization as saying that the industry was "seriously affected" by the economic crisis and the A/H1N1 flu given the decreasing number of reservations and reduction of airline capacity, and it will be difficult for the industry to recover before 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2009)