Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that attributable to the long Lunar New Year holidays, visitor arrivals reached 3,070,937 in February 2018, the highest figure since August 2014, increasing by 12.0% month-to-month and 23.1% year-on-year. Overnight visitors (1,396,068) and same-day visitors (1,674,869) went up by 13.3% and 32.6% respectively year-on-year. The average length of stay of overnight visitors held stable year-on-year at 2.2 days, while that of same-day visitors rose by 0.1 day to 0.3 day. As the proportion of same-day visitors (54.5% of visitor arrivals) increased by 3.9 percentage points year-on-year, the average length of stay of visitors decreased by 0.1 day to 1.1 days.
Visitors from Mainland China surged by 37.3% year-on-year to 2,286,989 in February; those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme soared by 57.9% to 1,403,954, setting a new single-month record since the implementation of the Scheme in July 2003. Mainland visitors came primarily from Guangdong Province (1,141,703), Zhejiang Province (76,439) and Shanghai (72,241). Visitors from Hong Kong (501,753) inched up by 0.1% year-on-year, while those form the Republic of Korea (71,633) and Taiwan (79,670) dropped by 13.4% and 8.4% respectively. Meanwhile, visitors from the United States (13,479), Canada (5,802) and the United Kingdom (4,143) registered increases, whereas those from Australia (4,970) decreased.
Analysed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by land grew by 34.9% year-on-year to 1,970,653, with those arriving through the Border Gate (1,634,847) increasing by 31.2%. Visitor arrivals by sea went up by 1.9% year-on-year to 831,954; those disembarking at the Taipa Ferry Terminal (336,986) rose by 6.9%, while those arriving at the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal (494,968) decreased by 1.3%. Moreover, visitor arrivals by air totalled 268,330, representing a year-on-year growth of 23.3%.
In the first two months of 2018, visitor arrivals totalled 5,812,402, up by 8.2% year-on-year; overnight visitors (2,879,175) and same-day visitors (2,933,227) increased by 11.0% and 5.7% respectively year-on-year. The average length of stay of visitors held stable year-on-year at 1.2 days, with that of overnight visitors (2.1 days) and same-day visitors (0.2 day) remaining unchanged. Analysed by country/place, visitors from Mainland China (4,214,631) and the Republic of Korea (169,494) went up by 15.1% and 3.2% respectively year-on-year, while those from Hong Kong (940,326) and Taiwan (163,261) dropped by 8.6% and 4.7% respectively. Meanwhile, visitors from the United States (27,953) and Canada (11,813) registered year-on-year growth, whereas those from Australia (14,894) and the United Kingdom (7,955) declined.