Lunar New Year travel: Hong Kong to receive more than 1 million mainland Chinese tourists during festive holiday

The Immigration Department said it expected 7.5 million trips by Hongkongers and tourists starting Lunar New Year eve on February 9 to 17.

It said 6 million trips will pass through the city’s land boundary control points with the mainland.

The fourth day of the new year, on February 13, was expected to be the busiest day with 607,000 trips heading in and out, the department added.

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Hong Kong will host a Lunar New Year parade on Saturday, February 10, at Tsim Sha Tsui, and police have estimated a turnout of about 44,000 people for that event.

The fireworks show, the first in four years, is scheduled at 8pm on Sunday at Victoria Harbour. Police did not have any estimate of how many would turn up, but noted there were 400,000 in attendance in 2019.

Police said road closures and crowd control measures will be put in place during the two days of celebrations, while border checkpoints will extend operating hours.

The Shenzhen Bay checkpoint, linking the western areas of Hong Kong with Shenzhen, will be open 24 hours for a five-day period from Lunar New Year’s Eve on February 9 to 13.

The Lo Wu control point, which is connected to the East Rail line, will remain open until 2am on February 9 and 11. The last train to Lo Wu will depart from Admiralty at 12.56am for both days.

The government said the Lo Wu border, which will handle 80 per cent or 6 million out of 7.5 million trips during the Lunar New Year holiday, is expected to be the busiest.

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The hotel industry also expects a business boom.

Timothy Chui Ting-pong, the executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Association, said hotel bookings for the coming weekend from February 9 to 11 were “ideal,” and the expected occupancy rate was about 90 per cent.

The bulk of the visitors were from the mainland, but levels still have not fully recovered to pre-coronavirus levels, he added.

Jack Cheung Ki-tang, the director of CTS HK Metropark Hotels Management, said the group’s hotels were about 80 per cent booked over the holiday, with an average stay of three to four nights.

“Business is obviously better than the last holiday, which was Christmas,” he told the Post.

“That’s not a holiday on the mainland, and Hong Kong’s tourists currently remain mainly from across the border.”

Cheung added the reservation situation remained “more or less the same” compared with the National Day “golden week” break, and that business so far this year had been “better than expected”.

Rooms across the various price ranges were performing equally well, he said.

“Accommodation is considered a necessity to most tourists, so they will factor that into their budget no matter what, unlike shopping and spending on luxury goods.”

Online travel agency Klook said it saw an 80 per cent year-on-year growth for inbound bookings, including flights and hotels for the coming weekend February 9 to 11, with South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, mainland China and Japan being the top five countries where tourists come from for the eight day holiday.

The top three attractions for mainland Chinese visitors were Disneyland, the fireworks display at Harbour City and Hong Kong Palace Museum.

All visitors spent an average of HK$1,500 (US$192) per person per purchase.

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Professor Terence Chong Tai-leung, the executive director of Chinese University’s Lau Chor Tak Institute of Global Economics and Finance, said the number of visitors to Hong Kong was generally on the rise, but there was still “much room for growth”.

He said only 34 million people visited in 2023, compared with the 65 million recorded in 2018.

“We [should] expect more tourists to come this year,” he said.

“Restaurant business grew by 7 per cent last year, so overall we have net gains from tourists.”

As for outbound travel, Yeung said group tours were expected to be around 60 per cent of pandemic levels - around 1,800 tour groups over the eight-day Lunar New Year period.

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She added a lack of flights compared to 2019 and a decision by High Speed Rail to stop accepting group tour reservations from late January to this month to ensure smooth running of services over the busy travel period, as well as economic factors had affected group travel demand.

Yeung said people were travelling to the northern mainland city of Harbin to go skiing, as well as northern parts of Europe, such as Finland and Denmark.

She added Japan remained a popular destination, but tours to the country had flatlined after the New Year’s Day earthquake which killed more than 200 people.

Klook told the Post that the top five destinations for travellers from Hong Kong were Japan, mainland China, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea.

Yazmin Leung, 35, who works in the legal sector, said she would visit Bangkok for five days over the Lunar New Year break.

“I went to Hokkaido [in Japan] for skiing over Christmas and took a few trips to other parts of the country all throughout last year,” she said.

Additional reporting by Ambrose Li