Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that, as affected by the ongoing epidemic of novel coronavirus pneumonia, number of visitor arrivals in March 2020 tumbled by 93.7% year-on-year to 212,311; yet, the number represented an increase of 35.8% from February (156,394), with Hong Kong visitors arriving via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge soaring by 131.3%. Overnight visitors (125,896) and same-day visitors (86,415) declined by 92.0% and 95.2% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors went up by 1.8 days year-on-year to 3.0 days; overnight visitors prolonged their stay by 2.5 days to 4.7 days, whereas the duration for same-day visitors remained unchanged at 0.2 day.

In terms of source of visitors, Mainland visitors plummeted by 96.3% year-on-year to 88,890, with number of those travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme (6,813) plunging by 99.4%. Visitors from the nine Pearl River Delta cities in the Greater Bay Area (19,739) declined by 97.4%. Furthermore, visitors from Hong Kong (111,347) dropped by 81.5% while those from other major countries/places showed decreases of more than 90%.

Analysed by checkpoint, visitor arrivals by land fell by 91.9% year-on-year to 203,238 in March, with those arriving via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (109,979) and through the Border Gate (80,191) reducing by 78.2% and 95.5% respectively. Visitor arrivals by air declined by 97.1% year-on-year to 8,950; moreover, there were only 123 visitors arriving by sea in March.

In the first quarter of 2020, visitor arrivals totalled 3,219,170, a drop of 68.9% year-on-year. Same-day visitors (1,698,337) and overnight visitors (1,520,833) decreased by 69.8% and 67.9% respectively. The average length of stay of visitors extended by 0.3 day year-on-year to 1.4 days, with that of overnight visitors rising by 0.5 day to 2.7 days while that of same-day visitors staying unchanged at 0.2 day. Analysed by visitor source market, visitors from mainland China (2,293,229), Hong Kong (649,868) and Taiwan (80,940) fell by 69.2%, 63.8% and 69.1% respectively, and those from the United States (13,469), Australia (7,904) and Canada (6,175) recorded year-on-year decline.