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Hong Kong saw a 5.9% year-on-year rise in visitors in January to 2.96 million, with the short- and long-haul markets recording 18% and 18.7% growth, the Tourism Board says.
With the global economy stabilising and consumer travel sentiment gradually recovering, North Asia saw a 29.1% gain driven by the 40.5% arrival upsurge from South Korea.
Mainland visitors saw a milder increase, at 0.8%, given the relatively higher base of arrivals as a result of the Lunar New Year holiday being in January last year. Taiwan arrivals grew 0.2%.
Emerging markets, including India (47.3%), Russia (141.9%) and the Middle East (41.8%), continued their upward trend since the last quarter of 2009, with arrivals substantially boosted by expanded flight capacity, visa-free arrangements and the increased propensity to travel.
About 56.3% of all visitors stayed in the city at least one night, 1.1 percentage points lower than the same month last year. Occupancy across all hotel categories was 87%, up eight percentage points. The average achieved hotel room rate was $1,096, down 1.9%.
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