Outbound travel rush on final day of Golden Week
發佈日期: 2026-05-05 19:58
TVB News
On the final day of the mainland's May Day Golden Week holidays, Hong Kong's Immigration Department expects a peak in outbound travel.
As of 4 p.m., more than 460,000 passenger trips had been recorded at various border checkpoints with around 76,000 mainland visitors having left the city.
Over the first four days of the Golden Week, mainland residents made altogether 900 thousand trips into the city -- rising 8.7 percent year-on-year.
At the waiting hall of the West Kowloon High-Speed Rail Station, crowds were relatively light in the morning.
However, departure boards showed that multiple long- and short-haul trains to various cities throughout the morning and afternoon were already sold out.
HK Student Living in Guangzhou Mr. CHEUNG: "Because I bought the ticket yesterday and there's no more ticket in the afternoon, only in the morning there's tickets left."
Polish Tourist BARTOSZ: "We bought the last train that is going to Shenzhen because all the tickets are sold out until 10 p.m. I think."
A first-time traveller to Hong Kong spent 5,000 dollars across four action-packed days here and plans to visit Hong Kong again in August: "We went to a bar, drinking, and ate lots of delicious food. The MacLehose Trail, we hiked there. Hiking is very interesting."
The Travel Industry Council earlier said Hong Kong's small, medium-sized and large hotels all recorded an overall occupancy rate of 90 percent during the mainland's May Day Golden Week holidays, while room rates also rose by around 10 percent compared with previous long holidays.
The council says more mainland holidaymakers decided to travel to Hong Kong after many Japan-bound flights from the mainland have been cancelled, coupled with the uncertain Middle East situation and the increased fuel surcharges which ratcheted up the cost of travel to Europe.
They say more than 800 tour groups with a total of 32,000 participants visited Hong Kong over these five days. The figures are on par with last year. Half of them are daytrippers.
The council adds that the overall tally of mainland holidaymakers visiting Hong Kong during the Golden Week is expected to reach 980,000 -- around 6 percent higher than last year.
