More than 10m tourists visit Hong Kong via cross-border rail link, bridge

The West Kowloon Terminus for the Express Rail Link

More than 10 million tourists have visited Hong Kong via the Hong Kong section of Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge since the operation of the two cross-border infrastructures began, according to Hong Kong Monthly Digest Statistics released last week.

The data published by Hong Kong’s Census Statistics Department shows that around 5.27 million visitors used West Kowloon Station to travel to and from Hong Kong, with visitor arrivals reaching 1.81 million in December.  As for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, more than 4.81 million visitors made trips to Hong Kong via the bridge, with 2.21 million in December.

From January to November last year, visitor arrivals from the mainland witnessed a 14.2 percent increase to reach 46 million compared to the same period in 2017. In 2018, visitors from the mainland spent on average HKD21,000 per visit, 3 percent higher than 2017, said Nielsen Hong Kong, a global market research and study company.

Michael Lee, managing director of Nielsen Hong Kong, predicted that retailing and other tourism-related industry might flourish due to the growing number of tourists from the mainland fueled by the cross-border rail link and the bridge. MDT/Xinhua