Six more mainland Chinese cities will be included in the Individual Travel Scheme as from May 1, 2006.

They include Nanchang, Changsha, Nanning, Haikou, Guiyang and Kunming.

Under the Scheme, residents from eligible mainland Chinese cities are allowed to travel to Hong Kong and Macau on their own without having to join tour groups.

There has been so far 9.45 million visitors from these eligible cities to Macau since the Scheme was launched on 28 July 2003.