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Tourism Performance in 2009
With the adverse impact of the global economic downturn and human swine influenza on the tourism performance worldwide, the year 2009 was described by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) as an ¡§exceptionally challenging¡¨ year. In the first half of 2009, visitor arrivals to Hong Kong suffered from a 3.4% drop. Yet, in the second half of the year, the tide began to turn following signs of economic recovery and receding concern on the influenza. Since August, arrivals picked up again and brought total visitor arrivals in the year to 29.59 million, a slight increase of 0.3% over 2008. This is quite an achievement since UNWTO estimated that international tourist arrivals fell by 4% worldwide in 2009.
The table below summarises Hong Kong's tourism performance in 2009 -
|
2009 |
vs. 2008 |
| Total Visitor Arrivals |
29 590 654 |
+0.3% |
| - Overnight visitors |
16 926 067 |
-2.3% |
| - Same-day visitors |
12 664 587 |
+3.9% |
| Average length of stay of overnight visitors |
3.2 nights |
-0.1 nights |
| Overnight visitor per capita spending |
HK$5,770
|
+6.1% |
| Expenditure associated with inbound tourism |
HK$162.9 billion |
+3.2% |
| Average hotel occupancy rate |
78% |
-7% points |
| Average achieved hotel room rate |
HK$1,023 |
-16.3% |
Source: Hong Kong Tourism Board Mainland China continued to be the largest visitor source with 17.96 million arrivals (+6.5%), accounting for 60.7% of our total arrivals. Of these, 8.29 million (46.2%) were same-day visitors, up by 10.8% year-on-year. Amongst all Mainland arrivals, 59% or 10.59 million visitors came to Hong Kong under the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS), up by 10.1% over 2008..
For other short-haul markets, arrivals from Taiwan dropped by 10.3% to 2.01 million. North Asia also registered a decline of 18.2%. For South and Southeast Asia, arrivals dropped by a mild 1.7%, with Indonesia (+1.3%) and India (+4.6%) recording positive gain.
n respect of long-haul markets, the global financial crisis coupled with the reduction of flights led to a decrease of arrivals to Hong Kong by 6.5% in 2009. US arrivals (1.07 million), our fourth largest market, went down by 6.7% in 2009. Other major long-haul markets such as Australia (600 000; -6.8%), the UK (514 000; -8.9%), Canada (362 000; -4.5%), France (218 000; -5.1%) and Germany (211 000; -6.2%) also suffered from similar fate.
Yet, emerging markets such as Russia (+15.7%), India (+4.6%) and the Middle East (+2.0%) performed well. In particular, visitor arrivals from Russia surged by 54.2% after the implementation of visa-free entry on July 1, 2009.
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