Total visitor arrivals to Hong Kong exceeded 2.17 million in April, up 2.3 percent over the same month last year, the Tourism Board of Hong Kong said Monday.

The rise took the cumulative total for January to April to more than 8.79 million, 5.3 percent higher than the same period last year, the board said.

Almost all regional markets showed growth, with double-digit increases seen from Europe, Africa and the Middle East, while the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific also recorded robust performance.

As for the short-haul markets, Taiwan rose 5.4 percent, South and Southeast Asia 3.2 percent and North Asia 4.4 percent, according to figures released by the board.

Arrivals from the Chinese Mainland dipped 1.8 percent to 1,089, 240. Nevertheless, overall visitor numbers from this market in this year's first four months remained ahead of last year, up 3.5 percent to more than 4.86 million.

Of the visitors from the Mainland, who represented 50 percent of the April total, 530,568 traveled under the Individual Visit Scheme. This was 48.7 percent of the Mainland arrivals for the month, and 11.3 percent more than last April.

Tourism Board Chairman James Tien said it will be important to look at the overall arrival trends rather than focusing on the monthly fluctuations. Despite the slight drop in April, the provisional figures show that there was encouraging growth of arrivals from the Mainland in May so far.

In April, some 1.28 million arrivals or 59 percent of the total stayed in the city for at least one night, while the remaining 892, 000 or 41 percent classified as same-day in-town visitors. In January-April, over 5.33 million or 60.7 percent visitors stayed overnight, with some 3.45 million or 39.3 percent leaving on the day of arrival.

Hotel occupancy across all hotels in April was 82 percent, 4 percentage points lower than last April, with hotels in Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok recording the highest occupancy rate of 87 percent. The average achieved hotel room rate across all hotels was 1,410 HK dollars (180 U.S. dollars), about 11.5 percent higher than a year earlier.

The average hotel occupancy for January-April was 84 percent, 3 percentage points lower than in last year. The average achieved hotel room rate was 1,232 HK dollars (157 U.S. dollars), representing a 13.4 percent year-on-year rise.

Source: Xinhua