Tourism | Visitor arrivals for March show a slight increase

Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals showed a 5.7 percent increase year-on-year to 2,501,219 in March, and a slight month-to-month increase of 0.2 percent.

Overnight visitors rose by 13.9 percent year-on-year to 1,336,384, while same-day visitors decreased by 2.4 percent to 1,164,835.

Visitors from mainland China increased by 11.5 percent year-on-year to 1,655,103 in March, with those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (741,199) rising by 18.4 percent.

Mainland visitors came mainly from Guangdong Province, Hunan Province and Fujian Province.

Visitors from the Republic of Korea (65,393), Japan (33,158) and Taiwan (84,347) increased by 56.9 percent, 19.2 percent and 7.5 percent year-on-year respectively, while those from Hong Kong (492,215) decreased by 12.6 percent.

Meanwhile visitors from the United States (16,203) and Canada (7,519) registered an increase whereas those from Australia (6,720) and the United Kingdom (4,798) saw a decrease.

Analyzed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by land went up by 5.1 percent year-on-year to 1,416,109, with visitors arriving through the Border Gate increasing by 3.6 percent.

Visitor arrivals by sea increased by 4 percent year-on-year to 877,254. Those disembarking at the Outer Harbor and the Provisional Ferry Terminal in Taipa rose by 5.6 percent and 1.5 percent respectively.

Visitor arrivals by air increased by 18.6 percent year-on-year, with those arriving at the airport rising by 18.3 percent.

In the first quarter of 2017, visitor arrivals totaled 7,872,461, up by 5.6 percent year-on-year. Overnight visitors rose by 12.1 percent while same-day visitors edged down by 0.2 percent.

The average length of stay of visitors increased by 0.1 day year-on-year to 1.2 days. For overnight visitors, the average length of stay decreased by 0.1 days to 2.1 days, whereas that of same-day visitors remained stable at 0.2 days.

During the first quarter, visitors from mainland China (5,317,678), the Republic of Korea (229,605) and Taiwan (225,620) increased by 7.6 percent, 32.0 percent and 1.9 percent respectively while those from Hong Kong (1,520,574) dropped by 2.5 percent. Moreover, visitors from the United States (44,122) and Canada (19,128) increased year-on-year while those from Australia (21,822) and the United Kingdom (12,928) decreased.