BEIJING _ Overseas visitors to Olympic host city Beijing declined by 14.2 percent in May from the same month last year, state media said Thursday.
The city's statistics bureau attributed the drop mainly to a decline in available hotel rooms due to renovations ahead of an expected influx of visitors for the August 8-24 Olympics, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
It also cited the rising cost of China travel packages for travelers from Japan and the United States, and said fewer tour buses were available since many had been diverted to Olympic duty.
The biggest decline - 26.6 percent - was for visitors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, Xinhua said.
Overall, overseas visitors made 1.577 million trips to the Chinese capital in the first five months of the year, down 1.6 percent from the same period in 2007, the report said. Visitors from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan dropped by 18.6 percent to 179,000, it said.
Beijing expects Olympic visitors to completely fill hotels, with private citizens offering homestays in their apartments to handle the overflow. A massive new airport terminal recently opened to deal with the expected spike in visitors and new subway lines and highway flyovers are being rushed to completion to help the tourists get around.
