HKTB sets target of 22.9 Million Visitor Arrivals for 2005

Maintaining the momentum of a record-breaking year in 2004, Hong Kong's tourism industry has also started 2005 on a bright note with best-ever January arrivals of 1,893,078. This represents growth of 8.3% on the same month in 2004, when the previous highest January figure of 1.75 million arrivals was recorded.

Direct comparisons with the January 2004 performance are nevertheless difficult, especially for individual markets, because the Chinese New Year holiday fell in January last year but February this year. Generally the Lunar New Year month is a low season for business travel to Hong Kong but a peak period for leisure traffic, particularly from markets like Mainland China where residents enjoy a long “Golden Week” holiday.

In keeping with this the three long-haul market regions, from where typically around 40% of arrivals are business-related, all showed strong comparative growth this January, with arrivals from Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific increasing 48.1% to 51,552, those from Europe, Africa and the Middle East growing 44.6% to 120,018, and those from the Americas rising 37.8% to 120,362.

Other market regions to perform exceptionally well were North Asia (+61.4%, 169,600 arrivals) and South and Southeast Asia (+49.6%, 164,523).

Arrivals from Mainland China showed a rare fall in year-on-year growth, easing 4.5% to 1,065,487, as last year’s January arrivals were boosted by the “Golden Week” holiday, whereas the same peak travel surge will not be seen until the February results this year. Taiwan, for similar reasons, showed a 3.6% decrease in arrivals to 164,183.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) Executive Director Clara Chong explained that it would be necessary to examine the January and February results together before a clear picture of progress could emerge. “It’s very likely that the picture will be reversed in February, with arrivals from the long-haul markets easing off but Mainland China showing a surge,” she noted. “We already know that Mainland arrivals were very strong over the Lunar New Year period, especially amongst individual travellers, with the International Chinese New Year Night Parade and other festive attractions proving a popular draw. We also drew a lot of family groups from around Southeast Asia for this event.”

Ms Chong added that despite the promising start to the year, the Board was at this stage adopting a fairly conservative approach in its initial forecast for 2005. “Given the very high starting base, with the Mainland and a number of other key source markets having achieved record arrivals last year, we’ve set a target of 22.9 million arrivals for this year,” she said. “This represents an increment of over one million arrivals, on top of the 6.3 million increase we achieved last year, which is quite a challenging target. We also have to bear in mind that with Disneyland not opening until later in the year, some travellers may choose to delay their visit. Hence we’re predicting more modest growth this year, but another surge in 2006.”

The HKTB is forecasting the average length of stay of overnight visitors to be 3.7 nights in 2005, the same figure as for 2004. “This is still higher than the 3.6 nights we achieved in 2002, despite the continued growth in the number of Mainland travellers under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS), who tend to visit more often, but for shorter periods and also, a growing world trend towards shorter vacations,” Ms Chong explained. “Leveraging on our existing strengths, we’ll continue to organise a series of mega-events and other special promotions for the family and business segments. These events have proved valuable in extending visitors’ length of stay and enhancing their satisfaction.”

Individual Mainland Travellers

Of the 1.07 million Mainland visitors in January, 466,661, or 43.8%, arrived under the IVS scheme. In total the number of individual Mainland visitors to Hong Kong has now passed 5 million since IVS was launched in late July 2003. A further boost in IVS arrivals is expected when, as recently announced by the central Government, the scheme is extended to residents of Tianjin and 15 districts of Chongqing with effect from 1 March 2005.

Same-Day In-Town Visitors

In January, 64.4% of all visitors stayed one night or longer, compared with 64.7% in January 2004. The remaining 35.6% were classified as “same-day in-town” visitors, departing for another destination on the same day as arrival, a trend reflecting Hong Kong’s increasing importance as a regional transport hub.

The proportion of same-day in-town visitors from Taiwan fell significantly to 67.9% from 76.2% in January 2004, as previously many arrivals in this category related to business people travelling between Taiwan and the Mainland, who are now able to take direct SkyPier ferries from Hong Kong International Airport to Pearl River Delta destinations without passing through Hong Kong immigration. On the other hand, the proportion of same-day Mainland visitors increased to 35.7% from 32.0% a year ago, following last year’s substantial expansion of IVS which has made it easier for many Mainland travellers – especially those from Guangdong – to make shorter but more frequent trips.

In the long-haul markets, nearly 80% of all arrivals continue to be overnight visitors.

Hotel Occupancy

The average occupancy rate across all categories of hotels and tourist guest houses was 88% in January, the highest January figure since 1989. All different hotel categories and locations performed well with those in Wan Chai, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui achieving 90% occupancy. The average achieved hotel room rate was HK$906, growth of nearly 23% on the January 2004 figure.

See other recent news regarding: HKTB See also: Hong Kong sets new Record with December 2004 Visitor Arrivals