Hong Kong saw 2.195 million visitors in September, up 3.5% year-on-year, bringing cumulative arrivals for the year's first nine months to 21.77 million - up 6.9% on the same period last year.

The Tourism Board said today the growth was mainly driven by short-haul regions, particularly double-digit increases in Mainland arrivals during the National Day Golden Week holiday.

Long-haul markets continued their downward trend due to the Mainland's visa policy adjustment and the global economic downturn.

Mainland visitors reached 1.25 million, up 10% on last year, followed by South & Southeast Asia (5.3%) and Taiwan (2.2%). For individual markets, Indonesia achieved strong growth of 62% due to a two-day holiday at the end of the month. Arrivals from India and Russia also rose 8.8% and 7.2%.

Long-haul slump

Visitors from Europe, Africa & the Middle East, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific and North Asia fell 4.1% to 16.4%.

About 56.3% of the total arrivals stayed in the city for at least one night, down two percentage points on last year. The remainder were same-day in-town visitors.

Of the Mainland arrivals, 55.2% came under the Individual Visit Scheme, up 19%. This brought the cumulative arrivals to 7.14 million in the first nine months, a rise of 13.7%.

Hotel occupancy across all categories of hotels in September was 79%, down two percentage points. Hotels in Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok had the highest occupancy with an average occupancy rate of 83%. The average achieved hotel room rate across all hotel categories was $1,228, about 3.1% lower than last September.