Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals soared by 312.5% year-on-year to 2,301,056 in September 2023; however, the figure represented a drop of 28.6% month-on-month. Overnight visitors (1,169,471) and same-day visitors (1,131,585) leapt by 317.3% and 307.7% year-on-year respectively. Meanwhile, the average length of stay of visitors dropped by 0.4 day year-on-year to 1.4 days; the duration for overnight visitors (2.5 days) decreased by 1.0 day whereas that for same-day visitors (0.2 day) remained unchanged.
As regards source of visitors, number of visitors from mainland China jumped by 216.2% year-on-year to 1,589,423, with those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (746,605) surging by 296.8%. Visitors from the nine Pearl River Delta cities in the Greater Bay Area soared by 153.6% year-on-year to 749,926, of whom 28.7% came from Zhuhai (214,970) and 21.7% from Guangzhou (162,966). Besides, visitors from Hong Kong (534,755) and Taiwan (50,660) rocketed by 1,058.0% and 665.8% year-on-year respectively.
Analysed by checkpoint, number of visitor arrivals by land hiked by 249.3% year-on-year to 1,837,842 in September; among them, 44.8% arrived through the checkpoint of Border Gate (822,883), 31.9% came via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (587,149) and 16.4% via the Hengqin port (301,644). Meanwhile, visitor arrivals by sea and by air leapt by 1,980.4% and 918.5% year-on-year to 274,423 and 188,791 respectively.
In the first three quarters of 2023, number of visitor arrivals expanded by 356.6% year-on-year to 19,928,168; overnight visitors (10,236,800) and same-day visitors (9,691,368) jumped by 486.7% and 270.0% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors dropped by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.3 days; the average stay for overnight visitors (2.3 days) decreased by 1.1 days whereas that for same-day visitors (0.3 day) rose by 0.2 day.