Tourist arrivals grew to 1,821,923 in May, up 7.5% on the same month last year.

The majority of Hong Kong's key markets registered month-on-month growth, with the best performers being Europe, Africa and the Middle East (131,893, +30.0%), Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific (47,432, +28.1%), and South and Southeast Asia (209,797, +26.4%).

Arrivals from the Americas rose 15.2% to 125,074, and from North Asia 11.6% to 138,820, while those from Taiwan registered a 8.5% rise to 162,382.

The total number of arrivals from January to May rose 10.4% to 9,235,303.

Double-digit growth

Tourism Board Executive Director Clara Chong said the strong growth in long-haul and regional markets is very encouraging.

"The fact we achieved double-digit growth in the vast majority of our key markets not only underlines Hong Kong's broad international appeal as a destination, but also reflects the effectiveness of our ongoing marketing and promotional activities across all regions," she said.

"With cumulative arrivals for the first five months of the year comfortably ahead of our projected total, we are confident we can meet our half-yearly target."

In May, 63.5% of all visitors stayed one night or longer, compared with 62.6% during the same month in 2004. The remaining 36.5% were classified as "same-day in-town" visitors, either returning home or departing for another destination on the same day as arrival

Hotels at 80%

While the 80% hotel occupancy across all categories of hotels and tourist guest houses in May is three percentage points lower than the 2004 figure, the apparent drop reflects the 6% rise in Hong Kong's room supply during the past 12 months.

The average achieved hotel room rate across all hotel categories and districts was $832, a 13.8% rise on the same month last year.