Top destination: A typical Hong Kong street bustling with activity. The city is hoping that year-round inbound travel numbers and consumer spending will bounce back to pre-lockdown levels. — Bloomberg
HONG KONG: Following a 36.1% surge in visitors during the weeklong national day holiday, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s government and business community are hoping that year-round inbound travel numbers and consumer spending will bounce back to pre-lockdown levels.
The national day holiday, which began on Oct 1, is a peak travel time for tourists from the Chinese mainland.
This year, Hong Kong welcomed more than 1.25 million visitors from Oct 1 to Oct 6, marking 36.1% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth. More than 1.11 million of the tourists came from the mainland, which was a 37% increase compared with last year’s holiday period, also known as Golden Week.
On Oct 1, Hong Kong recorded about 244,000 visitors, including about 221,000 from the Chinese mainland, breaking the city’s record for the number of visitors in a single day.
On Monday, the last day of the week-long break, the number of inbound visitors reached 88,206 as of 4pm, surpassing the whole-day figure for Oct 7 last year.
Hong Kong SAR immigration director Benson Kwok Joon-fung said on a radio programme on Sunday that the city’s border checkpoints operated smoothly over the holiday period, primarily because of the efficient use of technology.
At West Kowloon station – Hong Kong’s sole bullet-train terminal – 19 newly opened electronic immigration channels helped to relieve congestion, Kwok added.
He estimated that there will be another peak influx before the Christmas holiday period, predicting that the total number of exit and entry visits by the end of the year would surpass 300 million. That would mark a full recovery to the levels before the Covid-19 lockdowns.
The immigration chief also noted that activities organised by the government and various organisations attracted tourists to the city.
Hong Kong launched an array of national day celebrations while offering food and shopping discounts to boost local businesses.
Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades president Simon Wong Ka-wo expressed his satisfaction with the catering industry’s business during the holidays, particularly the better-than-expected HK$300mil (US$38.6mil or RM165.5mil) in sales logged on Oct 1.
Wong estimated that total dining expenditures for the entire Golden Week will be close to HK$2bil, a 5% y-o-y increase.
He added that in addition to short-haul visitors, more travellers from other parts of the Chinese mainland – including cities newly added to travel programmes, such as Qingdao, Shandong province, and Xi’an, Shaanxi province – joined the holiday inbound flow, and many visitors stayed overnight, which also contributed to the consumer market.
The bullish stock market was a factor in customers’ spending, Wong said, adding that he hopes the catering sector’s sales will rise. — China Daily/ANN
