THERE were 167,417 visitors from China during May, up 91.6 per cent over the same month last year.
The figure includes transients and seamen holding Chinese passports, two-way permits, travel permits or seamen's books.
There were a total of 758,905 visitors in May, an increase of 16.3 per cent over last year.
This brings the total number of visitors for the first five months to 3.49 million, up 12.4 per cent over the same period last year.
Taiwan continued to supply the largest number of arrivals for the five-month period, with 711,250, up 13.1 per cent over last year.
The number of Japanese visitors continued to decline, sliding 13.7 per cent from 551,440 last year to 475,934.
Visitors from Southeast Asia as a whole constituted the second largest group, with 496,942, up 5.5 per cent.