The 19th International Travel Expo (ITE) Hong Kong opened Thursday at the Convention and Exhibition Center with more than 500 exhibitors attending the four-day event.

The organizer, TKS Exhibition Services Ltd, said the ITE this year is expected to be the largest ever in the history of the exhibition, which has attracted exhibitors and buyers from all parts of the world, especially Asia, Europe and America. Latin American pavilion attended the exhibition for the first time and brought new tourism itineraries with unique characteristics.

Stephen Ip, secretary for economic development and labor, said at the opening ceremony that with the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland and the coming on-stream of other tourist attractions such as Asia's largest Wetland Park in early 2006, visitor arrivals in Hong Kong are expected to set another new record at 23.4 million in 2005.

He said the Hong Kong tourism industry has achieved spectacular growth in 2004 and made a number of records, especially in terms of visitor arrivals, which reached a record high of 21.8 million in the year.

He said an encouraging achievement in the industry is that HongKong, for the first time, was named the seventh most popular tourist destination in 2004.

Stephen Ip said, "We will do our best to maintain Hong Kong's leading position as Asia's premier tourist destination through joint efforts of the tourism industry, the Hong Kong Tourism Boardand the government."