Visitor arrivals to Taiwan in the first nine months of this year totaled more than 3.16 million, up 11.54 percent from the same period last year, the Tourism Bureau said Monday. The figures contradicted forecasts that 2009 would be a bleak year for the tourism industry in light of the global economic downturn and the influenza A(H1N1) outbreak, officials said, predicting that visitor arrivals for the whole year are likely to reach 4.1 million. The number of tourist arrivals from Hong Kong and Macau in the January to September period soared 26.7 percent year-on-year and from Europe 21.89 percent, the bureau's statistics show. The number of tourists from the United States rose 6.19 percent, and from Australia and New Zealand 2.19 percent. From July 2008, when Taiwan opened its doors wider to Chinese tourists, to the end of September this year, approximately 680,000 Chinese residents had visited Taiwan for sightseeing purposes, bringing in NT$46.7 billion (US$1.43 billion) in tourism revenue, the bureau said. 