Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals in February 2017 totalled 2,495,196, down by 5.6% year-on-year and 13.2% month-to-month. Same-day visitors decreased by 13.2% year-on-year to 1,263,236 while overnight visitors increased by 3.6% to 1,231,960. The average length of stay of visitors was 1.2 days, up by 0.1 day year-on-year; the average stay of overnight visitors went up by 0.1 day to 2.2 days whereas that of same-day visitors remained unchanged at 0.2 day.
Visitors from Mainland China decreased by 7.5% year-on-year to 1,665,220 in February, with those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (889,353) falling by 11.9%. Mainland visitors came mainly from Guangdong Province (780,099) and Hunan Province (55,269). Visitors from Hong Kong (501,141) dropped by 8.6% year-on-year while those from the Republic of Korea (82,764) and Taiwan (87,010) increased by 31.3% and 0.6% respectively. On the other hand, visitors from Australia (5,872) increased year-on-year whereas those from the United States (12,485), Canada (5,520) and the United Kingdom (3,967) decreased.
Analysed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by land dropped by 9.0% year-on-year to 1,460,779, with those arriving through the Border Gate (1,245,742) decreasing by 8.2%. Visitor arrivals by sea edged up by 0.4% year-on-year to 816,839; those disembarking at the Provisional Ferry Terminal in Taipa (315,335) rose by 12.4% while those at the Outer Harbour (501,504) dropped by 5.9%. Visitor arrivals by air went down by 3.4% year-on-year to 217,578, with those arriving at the airport (216,784) decreasing at the same rate.
In the first two months of 2017, visitor arrivals totalled 5,371,242, up by 5.5% year-on-year; overnight visitors (2,595,006) and same-day visitors (2,776,236) rose by 11.1% and 0.8% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors increased by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.2 days; the average stay of overnight visitors decreased by 0.1 day to 2.1 days whereas that of same-day visitors remained stable at 0.2 day. Visitors from Mainland China (3,662,575), the Republic of Korea (164,212) and Hong Kong (1,028,359) increased by 5.9%, 24.2% and 3.2% respectively while those from Taiwan (171,273) dropped slightly by 0.7%. Moreover, visitors from the United States (27,919) and Canada (11,609) increased year-on-year while those from Australia (15,102) and the United Kingdom (8,130) decreased.