Number of visitor arrivals in Hong Kong 2013-2024
In 2023, the number of international visitor arrivals to Hong Kong amounted to approximately 34 million. This was a significant increase from around 600 thousand in the previous year, yet still below the level of the pre-pandemic years. In the first six months of 2024, however, the visitor arrivals exceeded 21 million.
Visitor arrivals in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is an important tourist hub in Asia, and inbound tourism contributed roughly 3.5 percent to the city’s total GDP in the years preceding 2019. Leisure tourism was the main purpose for roughly 60 percent of people visiting the city. Due to its status as a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China and its close connections to the Chinese mainland, more than half of the travelers arriving in Hong Kong every year come from mainland China. Although around half of these visitors do not stay overnight, they still provide an important revenue stream for the tourism industry in Hong Kong.
COVID-19 pandemic impact
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the tourism industry in Hong Kong very hard. Most of the 3.57 million visitors registered in 2020 arrived in January that year, and monthly arrivals have dropped to merely five to ten thousand from February 2020. Tourism has only started recovering in 2023.
