Visitor arrivals hit 2,352,456 in February, up 2.9% on the same month last year, the Tourism Board says. The rise took the cumulative total for the first two months to 4,871,022 - 9.4% higher than the same period last year.

All three long-haul market regions achieved double-digit gain in February. Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific grew 26.2%, Europe, Africa & the Middle East went up 20.1%, and the Americas rose 14.1%.

As for the short-haul regions, both North Asia and South & Southeast Asia registered growth of about 20%.

Continued strong growth was recorded in high-potential markets, such as South Korea (50.1%) and the Philippines (12.9%), as well as in the emerging market of Russia (46.9%) and India (10.8%).

The Mainland continued to be the city's leading source market with arrivals dropping 2.6% to 1,442,302. Among them, 59.3% arrived under the Individual Visit Scheme, down 6.9%.

About 59% of all visitors to Hong Kong stayed in the city for at least one night, three percentage points lower than for the same month last year.