Tourists from mainland surged four-fold

Hong Kong is pressured to boost infrastructure, services and living costs.

According to Barclays, the 2003 relaxation of mainland visa restrictions on travel to Hong Kong has driven a significant increase in tourist arrivals. In 2002 around 16.6mn tourists visited Hong Kong, of which 6.8mn were from the mainland; by last year there were 42mn arrivals, of which 28.1mn were from the mainland. Today, two out of every three of Hong Kong’s tourists are from the mainland.

Here's more from Barclays:

This four-fold increase in mainland arrivals has put pressure on Hong Kong’s infrastructure. Yet it is not just the volume of arrivals that is having an effect, but how they enter the territory. An increasing amount of visitors are simply flowing over the mainland border In 2011 same-day visitors accounted for over 51% of all mainland arrivals, a consequence of visa changes allowing Shenzhen residents multiple-entry visas and no longer requiring qualified non-Guangdong residents to travel back to their original provinces to make a visa application.

Given Shenzhen’s recent announcement, the pressure from same-day visitors nipping over the border is likely to remain. Many of these visitors are using the MTRC to travel to Hong Kong’s core shopping areas of TST, Central and Causeway Bay, while others for convenience tend to shop in areas such as Sheung Shui and Fanling, just one or two train stops over the border, spending a few hours in Hong Kong before returning home.