STRONG ALL-ROUND PERFORMANCE GIVES 2000 VISITOR ARRIVALS A FLOURISHING FINISH

Visitor arrivals in Hong Kong during December 2000 grew by 18.5% compared with the same month in 1999, giving a flourishing finale to an already strong year of resurgence for Hong Kong’s tourism industry.

As announced earlier this month by the Chairman of the Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA), The Hon Mrs Selina Chow Liang Shuk-yee, JP, the strong December performance took total arrivals for the year to a new record of just under 13.06 million – comfortably beating the previous best total of 12.97 million (X) recorded in the pre-Handover tourism rush of 1996.

An especially encouraging feature of the December figures is that strong growth was recorded across the board, with the higher-yield long-haul markets showing double-digit increases as well as the short-haul markets.

The detailed December breakdown released by HKTA today (30 January) shows that arrivals from the Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific region and The Americas both grew by more than 20%, while Mainland China and South & Southeast Asia were close behind with 19.8% growth apiece. Other strong markets in December were North Asia (up 15.0%) and Europe, Africa & the Middle East (up 13.0%). In total, visitor arrivals for the month reached 1,226,398 – the second highest monthly total on record, topped only by the 1,273,300 registered in December 1996.

For 2000 overall, growth of 15.3% was recorded, with a particularly strong performance in the second half of the year. The best performing regions were North Asia (up 19.8% on 1999), Mainland China (up 18.1%), South & Southeast Asia (15.6%) and Taiwan (15.6%). Again, however, some of the long-haul markets showed almost as impressive growth, led by Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific (up 15.2%) and The Americas (up 12.2%). Only the Europe, Africa & the Middle East region, affected by the fall in value of the euro, failed to reach double-digit growth, although its 6.4% increase still showed a healthy gain, while the Middle East component soared 28.7%.

Same Day Visitors

This is encouraging news as long-haul travellers generally stay longer and spend more than those from other parts of Asia, who tend to use Hong Kong as a “long weekend” or stop-over destination. During the past few years, the proportion of “overnight” visitors (i.e. those staying for one night or longer) has been steadily decreasing, a matter of concern for Hong Kong’s tourism industry.

Since October 2000, the HKTA has been releasing the breakdown of same-day and overnight arrivals to help the industry monitor this trend. The final figures for 2000 show that 32.4% of all visitors left Hong Kong for another destination on the same day as arriving, a slight increase on the 30.9% recorded in 1999. Visitors from The Americas (85.2%) and South & Southeast Asia (84.0%) were most likely to stay overnight, while only 28.4% of all visitors from Taiwan did so, compared with 31.3% in 1999.

Detailed visitor characteristics and spending by country of origin will be released by the HKTA in mid-February, along with forecasts for 2001.

Hotel Occupancy

Hotel occupancy averaged 86% in December, and 83% for 2000 as a whole, compared with 79% in 1999. This is the best performance since 1996, when an overall occupancy of 88% was achieved, and comes despite a 2.9% increase for the year in the number of rooms available, which currently stands at just under 35,000.

In this respect, too, there are encouraging signs that Hong Kong’s tourism revival is bringing all-round benefits to the industry, and is not just confined to certain sectors. The daily average number of rooms occupied increased by 8.2% compared with 1999, with all categories of accommodation enjoying strong growth. The average achieved hotel room rate across all categories in 2000 was HK$703 (US$90), nearly 10% higher than in 1999.

December 2000 analysis by markets

Most of the short-haul markets benefited from Hong Kong’s EuroChristmas and related celebrations during December, which were strongly promoted by the HKTA and the travel industry around the region. Arrivals from Indonesia, which were also boosted by the Muslim New Year holiday, soared a remarkable 59.0% for the month, reaching 32,548. Other strong performers in December were Malaysia (43,320, +27.1%), Mainland China (354,680, +19.8%) and South Korea (35,234, +17.9%). Japanese arrivals grew 14.2% to 128,014, partly because of a low comparison base in 1999 when some potential visitors were reluctant to travel over the “Y2K” period.

In the long-haul markets, interest in the Hong Kong International Horse Races on 17 December helped towards strong December performances from Australia (32,553 arrivals, 23.2% increase on 1999) and New Zealand (4,997, +40.8%). The ITU Telecom Asia 2000 convention and the Society of Incentive Travel Executives (SITE) international conference at the beginning of the month also boosted business traffic, especially from North America. Arrivals from the United States grew 25.8% to 83,550 for December, while those from Canada grew 21.4% to 24,682. United Kingdom arrivals registered a sharp increase of 32.7% to 31,113.



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X- The HKTA began including arrivals of non-Macau residents from Macau in January 2000, taking into account the significant increases over the past few years in international visitors entering Hong Kong via Macau, and through Macau International Airport. To ensure that overall year-on-year comparisons are valid, all pre-2000 figures quoted here have been adjusted to include arrivals of non-Macau residents from Macau.