Macao's visitor arrivals in December 2010 reached 2,271,301, up 11.6 percent over the same month of 2009, according to figures released on Monday by the city's Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

Of all the arrivals in last December, 51.3 percent lasted only one day, with about 612,147 arrivals coming from the Chinese mainland, the figures indicated.

Analyzed by place of residence, visitors from the mainland increased by 18.8 percent year-on-year to 1.2 million, 52.8 percent of the total, of which 494,567 traveling to Macao under the Individual Visit Scheme.

Visitors from Hong Kong (667,595) and South Korea (33,775) grew by 10.9 percent and 49 percent respectively, while those from Taiwan (105,747), Malaysia (41,256), Japan (36,052) and Singapore (34,839) decreased by 7.4 percent, 10.2 percent, 5.8 percent and 11.9 percent respectively.

As for the whole year of 2010, total visitor arrivals reached 24.96 million, up by 14.8 percent year-on-year, with the majority of visitors coming from the mainland.