HKTB arrivals still positive

Hong Kong Tourism Board reports visitor arrivals in 2009 reached 29,590,654, representing an increase of 0.3% compared to 2008 despite the gloomy financial depression.

Contrary to other short-haul and long-haul market, which showed negative results, mainland China arrivals improved by 6.5% to 17,956,731. The robust growth was mainly driven by improved consumer sentiments in the latter part of the year and the mainland’s implementation of new measures to facilitate Shenzhen residents to visit Hong Kong. Of the total mainland China arrivals in 2009, 10,591,418 arrived under the Individual Visit Scheme, 59% of the total and 10.1% more than in 2008.

As for other short-haul regions, arrivals from Taiwan dropped by 10.3% to 2,009,644 owing to the continued impact of the direct links with the Mainland, which affected business arrivals. North Asia also registered decline of 18.2%, as outbound travel from Japan was affected by weak economy, while that of South Korea by the depreciation of the Korean currency. For South and Southeast Asia, arrivals dropped by a mild 1.7% with Indonesia (+1.3%) and India (+4.6%) recording positive gain.

In the long-haul regions, the economic downturn and the reduction in flight capacity caused arrivals from these regions to decrease by 6.5% in 2009. This was, nevertheless, a significant improvement over the double-digit decline in the early part of the year. As the economy showed signs of improvement towards the end of 2009, positive growth was recorded in arrivals from The Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific in the last two months.

For the individual markets, all emerging markets, namely India (+4.6%), Russia (+15.7%) and the Middle East (+2.0%) achieved positive growth in 2009, as a result of enhanced flight capacity and promotional effort. In particular, the mutual visa free access agreement between Hong Kong and Russia since July 2009 led to robust growth of the number of Russian travellers.

The latest figures also show total expenditure associated to inbound tourism is expected to exceed HK$162 billion, as compared with HK$158.95 billion in 2008. Based on the current estimates, per capita spending by overnight arrivals will be around HK$5,650, as compared with HK$5,439 in 2008.

The average hotel occupancy rate across all categories of hotels in 2009 was 78%, 7% lower than the previous year. Occupancy for top-tariff hotels averaged 72% in 2009, a 7% decrease over 2008, while those in the second and third tiers reached 81% and 80%, as compared with 87% and 86% in the previous year. Hotels in Yau Ma Tei/ Mong Kok achieved the highest average occupancy over the year, at 84%. The average achieved hotel room rate across all hotel categories and districts in 2009 was HK$1,023, representing a decrease of 16.3% on the 2008 figure.