Passenger traffic during the Labour Day Golden Week holiday remained smooth despite a substantial rise, the Immigration Department says, adding passengers were able to clear immigration within 30 minutes.

The average number of Mainland individual visitors arriving rose 35.8% on the same period last year. A total of 203,506 individual visitors entered Hong Kong, representing a daily average of more than 20,000. On May 1, individual visitors peaked at 43,587. Most travelled through land-boundary checkpoints at Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau.

From April 30 to May 9, more than 5.2 million people travelled in and out of Hong Kong through land, sea and air checkpoints, up 9% on last year. Among them, 1.4 million were visitors, up 8.7% on last year.

Mainlanders up 5%

There were more than 392,000 Mainland visitors, up 5% on last year. Some 4.01 million passengers went through land-boundary checkpoints, up 9.7%. Of these, 2.55 million, a daily average of 255,000, passed through the Lo Wu.

The highest daily number of passengers at Lo Wu - 338,000 - came on April 30. The highest daily figure for inbound passengers was 210,000 on May 2. The highest daily figure for outbound passengers - 202,000 - was recorded April 30. Passenger traffic at Lok Ma Chau was also heavy, with 1.22 million passengers, a daily average of 122,000.

The busiest day at Lok Ma Chau was April 30 with 147,000 passengers. The highest daily figure of 80,000 for outbound passengers was recorded on the same day. The highest daily number for inbound passengers was more than 92,000, which was recorded on May 2.

To cope with the large increases, the department redeployed 209 officers from other divisions to reinforce control points. An 87-member Emergency Response Team was mobilised to reinforce Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau checkpoints from April 30 to May 2.