Visitor arrivals to Hong Kong climbed 15.1% to 4.14 million in January 2012, driven by a strong rise in visitor numbers from mainland China.
With the Chinese New Year holiday falling in January this year as opposed to February in 2011, arrivals from the mainland rose 23.9% compared to January 2011, hitting 3.1 million – nearly 75% of the total arrivals.
This offset a series of declines from other markets. The number of visitors from Southeast Asia dropped 6.3% year-on-year to 227,900, while those from Taiwan fell 2.5% to 178,200. Long-haul markets didn’t fare any better, with arrivals from the Americas (-7.7% to 130,600), Europe, Africa and the Middle east (-6.3% to 161,700) and Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific (-3.1% to 69,700) all declining.
