China drives tourism growth in HK
Mainland China continued to act as the primary driver in Hong Kong’s growing tourism sector through April.
Overall arrivals from the mainland made a year-on-year leap of 23.9% to 2,647,026. Of these, 64.3% (over 1.7 million) travelled under the Individual Visit Scheme, 26.0% more than in April 2011.
This helped offset a dip in arrivals from short-haul markets. Total short-haul arrivals declined by 3.7% to 726,289, although individual markets such as the Philippines and Japan bucked the slump, recording double-digit growth of 17.0% and 10.1% respectively.
Long haul arrivals hit 466,865. Russia showed rapid growth of 30%, while arrivals from Australia and New Zealand dipped 5%.