East China's Shandong Province has received more than 1.55 million overseas travelers last year, said the provincial tourism bureau here Friday.

Wang Yuansheng, spokesman of the bureau, said the gross number of the overseas travelers to Shandong increases by 30 percent as against that in 2004, bringing the province 793 million U.S. dollars, a year-on-year growth of 39.75 percent.

About 1.25 million travelers are from foreign countries, up 30 percent, while travelers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao increased by a big margin over the same period in the previous year.

Wang said that in 2005, 49 percent more travelers from Europe came to visit Shandong and the traveler number from America also increased by 36 percent on a year-on-year basis.

(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2006)