Visitor arrivals in April hit 1,736,496, exceeding April's previous record by more than 330,000.

Compared with April last year, when tourism was severely affected by the SARS outbreak, the year-on-year increase was 251.8%. However, it was 23.8% higher than 2002, confirming that recovery remains well on track.

Total arrivals for the first four months of the year were 6.67 million, up 39.1% over the same period last year and 33.5% on 2002.

Tourism Board Executive Director Clara Chong said the figures keep Hong Kong well on track to meet its target of 20.5 million arrivals, which assumes growth of 31.8% on last year's total of 15.54 million.

"Arrivals are now consistently ahead of pre-SARS levels in Australia, Europe and Southeast Asia, while the Mainland market continues to grow strongly, boosted by the Individual Visit Scheme. We are also encouraged to see that only a small gap remains to be bridged in North America," she said.

April hotel occupancy at 86%

The average occupancy rate across all categories of hotels and tourist guest houses in April was 86%, compared with just 22% in April last year.

For the first four months of the year, the average occupancy rate stood at 85%, compared with 67% for the same period last year.

Total expenditure associated with inbound tourism reached $74.93 billion last year.

Despite a 6.2% fall in arrivals for 2003 in the wake of SARS, destination consumption expenditure - defined as the payments made by visitors for goods and services consumed in Hong Kong - rose 1.9% to $59.62 billion.

Overnight visitors spent more

The average per capita spending of overnight visitors rose 12.2% to $5,502, while that of same-day in-town visitors swelled 30.8% to $811. Overnight visitors also stayed for longer - an average of 4.1 nights, compared with only 3.6 nights in 2002.

The Mainland cemented its position as the highest-spending market, with the per capita spending of overnight Mainland visitors growing 6.7% to $6,018 and their length of stay increasing 6.4% to 4.8 nights.