Mainland and Philippine visitors boost Hong Kong’s tourism

The Hong Kong Tourism Board said 16% more visitors came to the island during the first half compared to the same period in 2011.

Of Hong Kong’s had 22.3 million visitors, 15.6 million were from Mainland China, or a rise of 22.7% year-on-year. Visitors from the Philippines were the highest from Southeast Asia, growing 16.9% in overall arrivals and 18.2% in overnight arrivals.

Total overnight arrivals rose by 6.8% to 11 million, or 49.2% of the total number of arrivals. The number of same-day arrivals was about 11 million, up 25.3% from last year.

Mainland China also saw a 10% growth in the number of overnight arrivals, which increased to nearly 6.75 million, comprising 43.3% of total arrivals from the Mainland.

Among the short-haul market regions, North Asia registered a 7.7% rise in arrivals to over 1.18 million when compared with the previous year. Japanese visitors constituted 650,000 of these arrivals. With expanded Hong Kong-Japan flights, overnight arrivals from the country jumped by 11.4 per cent to over 400,000, which calculated to 60 per cent of overall Japanese arrivals.

The growth momentum in arrivals from South Korea continued in the first half, pushing up arrivals by 6.9% to around 530,000. The number of visitors from Southeast Asia rose by 2.9% to 1.54 million. On the other hand, arrivals from Taiwan fell 5.7% to around one million.

In the long-haul market regions, arrivals from Europe rose by 6.8% to 926,430. The UK, Germany and Russia recorded a 7.3%, 3% and 56.5% , respectively. Arrivals from the Americas stood at 898,946, while those from Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific region put together were 369,754, both figures unchanged from the previous year.

“We are encouraged to see that amidst the global economic uncertainties, our tourism industry reported satisfactory growth during the first half of the year,” said HKTB Chairman James Tien.

He added that in the second half of this year, HKTB will maintain flexibility in adapting its marketing strategies and make best efforts to maintain a balanced portfolio of visitors.