Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that attributable to the Lunar New Year holidays and the impact of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, visitor arrivals in February 2019 increased by 15.5% year-on-year to 3,545,701, and grew by 3.5% month-to-month. Overnight visitors (1,510,178) and same-day visitors (2,035,523) rose by 8.2% and 21.5% respectively year-on-year. As the proportion of same-day visitors continued to expand to 57.4%, the average length of stay of visitors shortened by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.0 day, with that of overnight visitors (2.1 days) and same-day visitors (0.2 day) both decreasing by 0.1 day.
Visitors from Mainland China totalled 2,559,144, up by 11.9% year-on-year; those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (1,462,724) rose by 4.2%. Mainland visitors came primarily from Guangdong Province (1,132,078), Zhejiang Province (100,524) and Hubei Province (90,230). Visitors from the Republic of Korea (86,179), Hong Kong (658,030) and Taiwan (82,579) increased by 20.3%, 31.1% and 3.7% respectively year-on-year. Meanwhile, visitors from the cities in the Greater Bay Area grew by 9.3% year-on-year to 1,672,327; besides Hong Kong, visitors coming from Zhuhai (214,515) rose by 9.5%, while those from Guangzhou (203,794) and Foshan (159,023) saw respective decreases of 4.6% and 13.6%.
Analysed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by land soared by 30.9% year-on-year to 2,579,704 in February, and 19.7% (508,709) of them entered via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge; those arriving through the Border Gate (1,767,635) increased by 8.1%. Visitor arrivals by air grew by 23.5% year-on-year to 331,441, while those by sea decreased by 23.7% to 634,556.
In the first two months of 2019, visitor arrivals totalled 6,970,827, up by 19.9% year-on-year. Overnight visitors (3,151,546) and same-day visitors (3,819,281) increased by 9.5% and 30.2% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors was 1.1 days, down by 0.1 day year-on-year, with that of overnight visitors (2.1 days) and same-day visitors (0.2 day) remaining stable. Analysed by country/place, visitors from Mainland China (5,063,638) and Hong Kong (1,191,770) surged by 20.1% and 26.7% respectively year-on-year, and those from the Republic of Korea (185,642) and Taiwan (169,439) went up by 9.5% and 3.8% respectively. Visitors from the United States (30,653), Australia (16,272), Canada (12,406) and the United Kingdom (8,665) recorded year-on-year growth.