Hong Kong’s visitor numbers in August may have surpassed 5 million, a post-pandemic record, the tourism sector lawmaker has said.
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Legislative Council member Perry Yiu Pak-leung said on Sunday that mega-events and a diversified tourism model were likely to have bolstered the boom, but visitor numbers had yet to return to pre-Covid levels because of fierce competition and a slowdown in global business travel.
“Preliminary data for August shows it was definitely the highest single month for incoming tourist numbers since the pandemic,” Yiu said in a television interview, noting that no other month so far had topped January’s 4.74 million people.
“From what I’ve seen, August has already surpassed that number and may actually even break 5 million – so this is a new single-month high.”
The lawmaker highlighted that around 9.6 million people had visited over the two-month summer period in July and August, representing a 14 to 15 per cent increase over the same period last year.
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He attributed the growth to the efforts of the Tourism Commission, the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the travel industry to promote the city and develop new products.
