Visitor arrivals for May 2015

Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals edging up from April (2,547,435) to 2,548,562 in May 2015, an increase of 0.9% year-on-year; same-day visitors totalled 1,386,839 (54.4% of total), up by 2.6%. The average length of stay of visitors increased by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.1 days; overnight and same-day visitors had an average stay of 2.2 days and 0.2 day respectively. Visitors from Mainland China totalled 1,690,987, up by 3.6% month-to-month but down slightly by 0.5% year-on-year; those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme increased by 3.5% year-on-year to 752,982. Mainland visitors came primarily from Guangdong Province (731,215), Fujian Province (72,544) and Hunan Province (69,083). Visitors from Hong Kong (522,532), Taiwan (76,450) and the Republic of Korea (52,298) increased by 5.1%, 0.6% and 31.4% respectively year-on-year, while those from Japan (24,363) decreased by 8.4%. Long-haul visitors from the United States (15,949) and the United Kingdom (5,117) registered year-on-year increase, whereas those from Australia (7,624) and Canada (6,289) saw decline. Regarding mode of transport, visitor arrivals by land totalled 1,384,263, down by 2.4% year-on-year; visitors entering through the Border Gate accounted for 88.2% of the total, at 1,220,627, down by 4.0%, while those arriving via the Checkpoint of Cotai rose by 13.4% to 161,294. Visitor arrivals by sea increased by 5.8% year-on-year to 991,323, of which visitors entering via the Outer Harbour (612,707) and the Provisional Ferry Terminal in Taipa (351,163) rose by 6.8% and 7.6%. Visitor arrivals by air increased by 1.4% year-on-year to 172,976, with 172,053 entering via the airport, up by 2.3%. In the first five months of 2015, visitor arrivals totalled 12,508,218, down by 2.7% year-on-year, with same-day visitors rising by 1.0% to 6,967,731 (55.7% of total). Visitors from Mainland China (8,349,603) and Hong Kong (2,631,363) decreased by 3.1% and 0.7% respectively year-on-year, while those from Taiwan (385,225) and the Republic of Korea (262,157) increased by 1.4% and 16.0%. Moreover, long-haul visitors from the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom recorded year-on-year decrease.