Hong Kong saw a 6.3% year-on-year rise in visitors in May to 2.34 million, bringing the cumulative arrivals for this year's first five months to 12 million - up 9.5% on the same period last year, the Tourism Board says.

Almost all long- and short-haul market regions recorded positive growth, with Mainland arrivals rising to 1.3 million, up 6.4% on the same month last year. Of these arrivals, 54.4% travelled under the Individual Visit Scheme, up 3.6% over a year earlier.

Growth was also registered in arrivals from North Asia (13.6%), South & Southeast Asia (9.9%), Taiwan (7.4%), Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific (4.6%) and the Americas (0.6%), while Europe, Africa & the Middle East saw a 4.2% fall in arrivals.

As for the individual source markets, South Korea enjoyed the highest growth rate at 32.6%. Arrivals from the emerging markets of India gained 32.2% while those from Russia rose 14.2%.

About 58.4% of May visitors stayed in the city for at least one night, 2.3 percentage points lower than a year earlier.

Hotel occupancy across all categories of hotels in May was 81%. The average achieved hotel room rate across all hotel categories was $1,140, 3.5% higher than last May.