Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) announces 34 million full-year visitor arrivals in 2023

MUMBAI: On Wednesday, the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) revealed the approximate number of visitors who will arrive in 2023—34 million—of which around four million will arrive in December alone.

Over the whole year, Hong Kong's top source market for visitors continued to be the Chinese mainland, with Southeast Asian regions experiencing the fastest recovery.

"Visitor arrivals from the Philippines and Thailand in December exceeded the pre-epidemic level (average of years 2017 and 2018), reaching 116% and 106% of the pre-epidemic level respectively," noted HKTB in a press release.

Travelers for meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) returned to almost 70% of pre-pandemic levels, surpassing the leisure segment and emerging as the fastest-recovering travel category.

Half of the travelers were overnight guests, which is a larger percentage than it was prior to the epidemic. At 3.6 nights, the average length of stay was higher than it was prior to the pandemic. Overnight visitor satisfaction was 8.7 points out of 10, above pre-pandemic levels as well, according to a poll conducted by the HKTB.

"In the past year, the HKTB focused on reconnecting with visitors from around the world and driving the steady recovery of Hong Kong's tourism," stated Dane Cheng, Executive Director of HKTB. In addition to effectively communicating Hong Kong's normalcy and welcome to visitors, we also launched a number of promotions in response to changes in travelers' travel habits following the epidemic, all through the 'Hello Hong Kong' large-scale global promotional campaign. For example, in the HSR markets that are five hours' travel from Hong Kong, we have increased our marketing efforts for High Speed Rail (HSR) tourism."