The MTR Corporation has confirmed that 16 additional mainland Chinese cities will be added to the West Kowloon high-speed rail timetable from 26 January, lifting the total number of direct destinations to 110. New stops include Nanjing, Wuxi, Hefei and other second-tier commercial hubs long favoured by Hong Kong manufacturers and e-commerce sellers. According to MTR chief executive Jeny Yeung, the expansion was finalised in partnership with Beijing’s railway authorities to “unlock the full economic potential of cross-boundary rail”. (en.people.cn)
Tour operators are already pivoting. Timothy Chui, executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Association, told local radio that agencies are converting short-haul flight itineraries into rail packages because, door-to-door, a seven-hour train ride to Nanjing now competes with an airport-based journey of a similar duration once check-in and security wait times are factored in. (scmp.com)
Before travellers swap planes for the new through-train options, it is worth double-checking visa validity. VisaHQ’s Hong Kong portal (https://www.visahq.com/hong-kong/) streamlines mainland China visa applications for both leisure and corporate passengers, offering courier pick-up, real-time status tracking and group-order management—services that let mobility teams align paperwork with the newly expanded rail timetable.
![Hong Kong adds 16 new mainland stops to high-speed rail network ahead of Lunar New Year]()
From a corporate-mobility perspective, the longer through-train network is a boon for regional sales managers who previously had to transit in Guangzhou or Shenzhen to reach interior cities. Human-resources teams can expect a shift in traveller preference from air to rail for trips under eight hours, reducing carbon footprints and, in many cases, cutting per-diem budgets by 20-30 per cent.
The timing is no accident: passenger volumes traditionally spike during the Lunar New Year golden week. Immigration and Customs have signalled that they will open extra e-Channel lanes and deploy roving officers at West Kowloon to keep queue times under 15 minutes. Mobility managers are advised to remind staff that paper landing slips are still issued on board and must be retained for exit checks.
In the medium term, analysts see the rail build-out as a pillar of the Greater Bay Area’s “one-hour living circle”, eroding Hong Kong’s reliance on short-haul flights and strengthening its role as a multi-modal hub for Pearl River Delta manufacturing supply chains.
Tour operators are already pivoting. Timothy Chui, executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Association, told local radio that agencies are converting short-haul flight itineraries into rail packages because, door-to-door, a seven-hour train ride to Nanjing now competes with an airport-based journey of a similar duration once check-in and security wait times are factored in. (scmp.com)
Before travellers swap planes for the new through-train options, it is worth double-checking visa validity. VisaHQ’s Hong Kong portal (https://www.visahq.com/hong-kong/) streamlines mainland China visa applications for both leisure and corporate passengers, offering courier pick-up, real-time status tracking and group-order management—services that let mobility teams align paperwork with the newly expanded rail timetable.
From a corporate-mobility perspective, the longer through-train network is a boon for regional sales managers who previously had to transit in Guangzhou or Shenzhen to reach interior cities. Human-resources teams can expect a shift in traveller preference from air to rail for trips under eight hours, reducing carbon footprints and, in many cases, cutting per-diem budgets by 20-30 per cent.
The timing is no accident: passenger volumes traditionally spike during the Lunar New Year golden week. Immigration and Customs have signalled that they will open extra e-Channel lanes and deploy roving officers at West Kowloon to keep queue times under 15 minutes. Mobility managers are advised to remind staff that paper landing slips are still issued on board and must be retained for exit checks.
In the medium term, analysts see the rail build-out as a pillar of the Greater Bay Area’s “one-hour living circle”, eroding Hong Kong’s reliance on short-haul flights and strengthening its role as a multi-modal hub for Pearl River Delta manufacturing supply chains.
