Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has registered a drop of 93.6% drop in visitor arrivals in 2020. According to the provisional number of visitor arrivals in 2020, announced by HKTB, the destination registered only 3.57 million arrivals.

Arrivals in January 2020 alone accounted for the majority of the annual total. As Covid-19 started to spread around the world in February, Hong Kong limited entry to overseas visitors and introduced stringent quarantine measures from mid-March onwards. Most people arriving in Hong Kong thereafter were visiting family members or travelling for other essential reasons, reducing the number of tourists to almost zero.

HKTB chairman, YK Pang said: “The tourism industry has been through an extremely tough year. HKTB has renewed its strategies and approach in response to the immense challenges of the pandemic. As visitors could not come to Hong Kong in person, we took the initiative to concentrate on improving the city’s atmosphere and ambiance while maintaining its international exposure, so as to attract visitors back to Hong Kong as soon as the COVID-19 situation eases. Looking ahead to 2021, the HKTB is well prepared for the resumption of travel. We will further strengthen our cooperation with the travel trade to jointly develop new products and itineraries and enhance Hong Kong’s service quality.”

HKTB will be releasing the full details of December visitor arrivals and arrivals from individual markets in 2020 on 29 January 2021.