Hong Kong fails to meet tourism forecast as it logs 44.5 million arrivals in 2024
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong recorded 44.5 million visitors in 2024, according to provisional government figures, falling short of earlier forecasts and lagging far below the record high of 65 million in 2018.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) on Wednesday announced that the city welcomed 44,502,787 visitor arrivals last year, 31 per cent more than in 2023. Visitors from mainland China accounted for about 34 million of those arrivals, or 76 per cent.
“Among short-haul arrivals, Southeast Asian markets were impressive, especially the Philippines, with a record-breaking annual total of 1.2 million visitors from the country,” the HKTB said in a statement.
Arrivals from long-haul markets grew by more than 50 per cent, with Canada and Australia performing “exceptionally well in the fourth quarter.” HKFP reported last April that tourism from further afield had been slow to recover, in large part because flights had not returned to pre-Covid frequency though news of new security legislation also had tourists wondering whether the city was safe.
Protests and unrest in 2019 put a dent in Hong Kong’s tourism industry, while stringent Covid-19 curbs effectively sealed the city off for the better part of three years before the border fully reopened in early 2023.
The 44.5 million visitor arrivals recorded last year failed to meet HKTB’s earlier projection that the city would see 46 million arrivals in 2024.
In the statement, Dane Cheng, executive director of HKTB, said the government’s tourism body had made a “great effort to organise and promote mega events in Hong Kong” and to “drive Hong Kong’s development as a Muslim-friendly destination” in 2024.
The government has sought to position Hong Kong as the “events capital of Asia,” highlighting existing large-scale happenings such as the Hong Kong Sevens, Art Basel Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Marathon to drive tourism. However, the HKTB acknowlegded last March that visitors in 2024 were expected to spend 16 per cent less in Hong Kong in 2024 than last year.
Cheng added that the HKTB would take advantage of “various new measures benefitting Hong Kong announced by the central government and the new Development Blueprint for Hong Kong’s Tourism Industry 2.0″ to “do its best” to attract visitors to the city.
Following a surprise reshuffle at the top of the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau in early December, the government later that month unveiled a five-year development blueprint for the city’s tourism industry with the intention of boosting its contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) to around 5 cent by 2029.
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