(Adds details on Melbourne earnings, debt position, share movement)
Feb 22 (Reuters) - Australia's Crown Resorts CWN.AX on Thursday reported a marginal rise in first-half profit as a better performance at its Melbourne casino slightly outweighed declines elsewhere.
Normalised net profit before one-off items was A$192.4 million ($150.05 million) for the six months to Dec. 31, the company said in a statement, compared with A$191.3 million last year. This beat expectations of A$178 million according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Total turnover from high-end tourists on casino package holidays to Australia rose 16 percent to A$22.6 billion.
Crown, which withdrew from its offshore businesses to focus on Australia following the arrest of staff in China for illegally marketing casino tours, said a rise of 7.2 percent in normalised underlying earnings in Crown Melbourne aided strong performance in the home region. company has undertaken many divestments over the past year to cut debt, and reported net debt of just A$249 million at the end of December, compared with A$1.77 billion a year ago. shares climbed as much as 4.4 percent in early trade, compared with a 0.2 percent rise in the benchmark Australian equity index .AXJO ($1 = 1.2822 Australian dollars)