Legislative Council member Perry Yiu Pak-leung said on Sunday that mega-events and a diversified tourism model were likely to have bolstered the boom, but visitor numbers had yet to return to pre-Covid levels because of fierce competition and a slowdown in global business travel.
“Preliminary data for August shows it was definitely the highest single month for incoming tourist numbers since the pandemic,” Yiu said in a television interview, noting that no other month so far had topped January’s 4.74 million people.
“From what I’ve seen, August has already surpassed that number and may actually even break 5 million – so this is a new single-month high.”
The lawmaker highlighted that around 9.6 million people had visited over the two-month summer period in July and August, representing a 14 to 15 per cent increase over the same period last year.
He attributed the growth to the efforts of the Tourism Commission, the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the travel industry to promote the city and develop new products.
