Hong Kong will continue to explore overseas tourists resources so as to input momentum for the city's tourism sector in the long run such as during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the government said Wednesday.

In a bid to attract more foreign visitors in the next year, Hong Kong Tourism Board has started a global promotion campaign, including overseas road show, on-line tour design, special discount and organizing various mega events, Clara Chong, executive director of the board, told reporters at a press briefing here.

The global marketing campaign will not only generate immediate visitor arrivals and spending, but also sustain the tourism industry's long-term development and provide the impetus for growth during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2009 East Asian Games, said Chong. Hong Kong will hold the East Asian Games in 2009.

Chong's remarks came one week after the tourism board's report of 6.4 percent growth of arrivals to Hong Kong in October.

Some 2.4 million people visited Hong Kong in October, setting anew record for visitor arrivals in a single month and raising cumulative arrivals for the past ten months to 19 million.

"While we appreciate the increasing global presence of China's mainland will continue to feed arrivals to Hong Kong, we're strongly capitalizing on new sources of visitors, such as Italy, the Netherlands and Israel," Chong said earlier.

For the coming year, the tourism board has projected a visitor arrival of 27.14 million with estimated tourism expenditure of 114.7 billion HK dollars (14.8 billion US dollars).

Trying to attract more tourists, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government has worked hard to upgrade tourism facilities and develop new sites.

Over 4 billion US dollars of government funds have been used to develop tourist attractions to achieve the government vision of becoming the premier tourist destination in Asia, said the Financial Secretary Henry Tang.

Tang himself led a delegation to several Southeast Asian countries in May to promote Hong Kong tourism.

The tourism board expects 23 million visitors by the end of this year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2005)