Figures released by the Hong Kong Tourism Board showed that visitor arrivals in January 2008 reached 2,518,566, 16.2% more than in the same month in 2007.

The achievement is especially notable as it represents all-round performance of markets worldwide. Notwithstanding the high starting base, arrivals from non-Mainland market regions enjoyed double-digit gain of 12.6%. In particular, several individual markets maintained their recent buoyancy, including the high-potential market of South Korea (+28.2%), and such emerging markets as Russia (+44.2%) and the Middle East (+22.9%).

For Mainland China, which continued to be Hong Kong's leading source market, arrivals increased by 19.1% to 1,441,667. Among the Mainland visitors, 833,744 or 57.8% arrived under the Individual Visit Scheme, a year-on-year increase of 28.4%. In January 2008, 44.2% of the Mainland arrivals were same-day visitors. The number has been on the increasing trend, as more and more Mainland visitors make short, consumption visits to Hong Kong, riding on the convenience offered by the IVS.

Some 59.5% of all visitors to Hong Kong in January stayed in the city for at least one night, which is 2.3% lower than for the same month last year. The remaining 40.5% same-day in-town visitors either returned home or left for another destination on the same day as arrival. Taiwan continued to have the highest percentage of same-day arrivals at 65.9%, as many travellers from this market are either in transit to or from the Mainland and other destinations on the same day of arriving Hong Kong.

Hotel occupancy across all categories of hotels in January was 87%, two percentage points higher than that in January 2007. The geographic location with the highest occupancy in January was Yau Ma Tei/Mong Kok, where hotels recorded a rate of 91%. The average achieved hotel room rate across all hotel categories was HK$1,245, 5.7% higher than in January 2007.

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