October arrivals to Hong Kong exceed 2.56 million

HONG KONG – The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) announced that visitor arrivals to Hong Kong in October 2007 rose by 17 percent to 2,568,040, making it the best October figure ever. The increase brought the cumulative arrivals for January-October 2007 to 22,931,804, a year-on-year increase of 10.4 percent.



The increase in arrivals was largely driven by continued robust performance of Mainland China and the long-haul market regions, all of which recorded double-digit gain. In particular, Mainland China registered outstanding growth of 25.5 percent, which boosted monthly arrivals from the market to almost 1.36 million. Other major markets include Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific: 76,162 (+17.1 percent), Europe, Africa & the Middle East: 248,817 (+11 percent), The Americas: 195,126 (+15 percent), North Asia: 169,995 (+5.2 percent), South & Southeast Asia: 284,028 (+9.5 percent) and Taiwan: 184,984 (+0.5 percent).



As for the individual source markets, exceptional performance was recorded in such long-haul markets as Canada (+26.8 percent), New Zealand (+21.8 percent) and France (+11.9 percent), and from the key volume providers, including the United States (+11.5 percent), the United Kingdom (+12.5 percent), Australia (+16.4 percent) and South Korea (+10.2 percent). As for the newly emerged markets, such as the Middle East, the growth trend remained strong, with arrivals increasing by a solid 21 percent.