Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that affected by the ongoing epidemic of the novel coronavirus pneumonia, visitor arrivals in February 2020 plunged by 95.6% year-on-year to 156,394. Same-day visitors (81,090) and overnight visitors (75,304) tumbled by 96.0% and 95.0% respectively. Meanwhile, the average length of stay of visitors went up by 1.8 days to 2.8 days, attributable to a longer stay of Mainland visitors that took up the majority of total visitor arrivals. Another contributing factor was the growth in the proportion of overnight visitors (54.9%) among the Mainland visitors. The average duration for overnight visitors surged from 2.1 days in February last year to 5.4 days while that for same-day visitors dropped from 0.2 day to 0.1 day.

Visitor arrivals from most countries/places registered year-on-year decreases of more than 90% in February. Mainland visitors plummeted by 97.2% to 72,307, with those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (5,822) shrinking by 99.6%. Visitors from the nine Pearl River Delta cities in the Greater Bay Area (23,907) saw a decline of 97.6%. Visitors from Hong Kong (62,489) and Taiwan (5,967) receded by 90.5% and 92.8% respectively, and those from the United States (1,262) and Canada (880) both slipped by more than 80%.

Analysed by checkpoint, visitor arrivals by land recorded a slump of 95.1% year-on-year to 126,502 in February, with those arriving through the Border Gate (65,387) and via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (51,898) reducing by 96.3% and 89.8% respectively. Visitor arrivals by air declined by 93.7% year-on-year to 20,786, and those by sea slid by 98.6% to 9,106.

In the first two months of 2020, visitor arrivals totalled 3,006,859, a drop of 56.9% year-on-year. Same-day visitors (1,611,922) and overnight visitors (1,394,937) decreased by 57.8% and 55.7% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors increased by 0.2 day year-on-year to 1.3 days, with that of overnight visitors (2.5 days) rising by 0.4 day while that of same-day visitors (0.2 day) staying unchanged. Analysed by country/place, visitors from mainland China (2,204,339), Hong Kong (538,521) and Taiwan (76,349) fell by 56.5%, 54.8% and 54.9% respectively, and those from the United States (12,885), Australia (7,637) and Canada (5,805) recorded year-on-year decline.