Visitors walk past Galaxy Macao, the latest resort in Macao, during its opening May 15, 2011.[Photo/Agencies]

MACAO-- Macao's visitor arrivals in July reached 2,550,867, up 18 percent over the same month of 2010, according to figures released on Tuesday by the city's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

Of all the arrivals in July, 51.9 percent spent only one day, with about 768,364 arrivals coming from the Chinese mainland, the figures indicated.

Analyzed by place of residence, visitors from the Chinese mainland increased by 27.9 percent year-on-year to 1.46 million, 57.3 percent of the total, of which 617,591 traveling to Macao under the Individual Visit Scheme.

Visitors from Hong Kong (719,681), Taiwan (126,233), South Korea (35,337) and Malaysia (21,051) increased by 7.3 percent, 4.1 percent, 23.6 percent and 16.4 percent respectively, while those from Japan (29,255) decreased by 11.1 percent.

Total visitor arrivals were 15,797,523 in the first seven months of 2011, up by 9.8 percent year-on-year, according to the DSEC.

Analyzed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by sea and by land totaled 6,250,259 and 8,585,722 respectively in the first seven months of 2011, up 5.5 percent and 14.5 percent year-on-year respectively, while visitor arrivals by air totaled 961,542 during the period, down 0.8 percent year-on-year.