The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has announced that Hong Kong’s visitor arrivals in September exceeded 1.83 million, which is 2.4% more than in the same month in 2005, with Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific up 6.4%.
Cumulative arrivals for the first nine months of 2006 now stand at more than 18.57 million, a 9.5% increase compared with the previous year.
More than 1.10 million arrivals (60.3% of the total) in September stayed in Hong Kong for at least one night, with the remainder of over 725,000 (39.7%) classified as same-day in-town visitors.
This takes the cumulative January-September total for overnight visitors to more than 11.65 million (62.7%), while over 6.92 million (37.3%) left on the day of arrival.
Arrivals from key regional source markets were as follows:
Mainland China: 930,532 visitors (a 0.6% increase)
Taiwan: 166,143 (-2.9%)
South & Southeast Asia: 188,642 (9.5%)
North Asia: 168,761 (2.0%)
Europe, Africa & the Middle East: 151,650 (8.8%)
The Americas: 120,522 (2.0%), and
Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific: 61,949 (6.4%).
Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific’s 61,949 visitors brought the January-September total to 484,842, a 7.1% increase and during September Australian arrivals reached 52,498 and New Zealand arrivals were 8,944.
Hotel occupancy across all categories of hotels and tourist guesthouses in September was 82% and this is identical to the figure for September 2005, despite the 1.9% increase in Hong Kong’s hotel-room supply in the intervening 12 months.
The average achieved hotel room rate across all hotel categories was HK$1,132, 16.0% higher than in September 2005 and The average achieved room rate across all hotel categories is HK$1,028, 16.3% higher than in the first nine months of 2005.
The average occupancy across all categories of hotels and tourist guesthouses for January-September 2006 is 86%, 2% higher than in the same period in 2005.
Report by The Mole
