Less than 48 hours after Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation opened bookings for 16 newly added high-speed rail destinations on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, virtually every seat through the pre-Lunar-New-Year weekend has been snapped up. A spot-check of the 12306 ticketing app by the South China Morning Post found that second-, first- and business-class seats to 14 of the 16 new stops—including Nanjing South, Wuxi East and Hefei South—were already showing “sold out” from 14 to 16 February. (scmp.com)
The expansion lifts West Kowloon Station’s reach to 110 mainland cities, slashing end-to-end journey times and giving southern business travellers a rail alternative to congested Spring Festival flights. The single daily Hong Kong–Nanjing service, for example, makes the 1,450-kilometre trip in seven hours at prices starting from HK $1,028 (about US $132).
Rail operators attribute the brisk sales to pent-up family-reunion demand, competitive fares versus airfare, and seamless cross-border immigration procedures that allow travellers to clear both Hong Kong and mainland controls in one building. Corporates with operations in the Yangtze River Delta say the through-train offers staff a time-saving substitute for multi-segment flights via Shenzhen or Shanghai.
![Tickets for Hong Kong’s New High-Speed Rail Routes to Mainland China Sell Out Within Hours]()
For travellers who still need to arrange the proper paperwork, VisaHQ can streamline the process of securing a mainland China visa ahead of departure. Their dedicated China page (https://www.visahq.com/china/) explains the latest entry requirements and offers step-by-step assistance, helping passengers avoid last-minute surprises when they arrive at West Kowloon’s joint-checkpoint halls.
To handle the crush, MTR and China State Railway Group will add standing-ticket quotas and have kept the door open for additional frequencies once CRH380J trainsets and driver rosters can be re-aligned. Travellers are advised to monitor late-night ticket releases—12306 routinely “recycles” unpaid reservations after 30 minutes—and consider detouring via nearby hubs such as Hangzhou East.
From a mobility-policy standpoint, the surge underscores rail’s growing competitiveness on sub-1,500 km corridors and the importance of integrating China’s e-ticket, real-name and health-declaration requirements into corporate booking tools.
The expansion lifts West Kowloon Station’s reach to 110 mainland cities, slashing end-to-end journey times and giving southern business travellers a rail alternative to congested Spring Festival flights. The single daily Hong Kong–Nanjing service, for example, makes the 1,450-kilometre trip in seven hours at prices starting from HK $1,028 (about US $132).
Rail operators attribute the brisk sales to pent-up family-reunion demand, competitive fares versus airfare, and seamless cross-border immigration procedures that allow travellers to clear both Hong Kong and mainland controls in one building. Corporates with operations in the Yangtze River Delta say the through-train offers staff a time-saving substitute for multi-segment flights via Shenzhen or Shanghai.
For travellers who still need to arrange the proper paperwork, VisaHQ can streamline the process of securing a mainland China visa ahead of departure. Their dedicated China page (https://www.visahq.com/china/) explains the latest entry requirements and offers step-by-step assistance, helping passengers avoid last-minute surprises when they arrive at West Kowloon’s joint-checkpoint halls.
To handle the crush, MTR and China State Railway Group will add standing-ticket quotas and have kept the door open for additional frequencies once CRH380J trainsets and driver rosters can be re-aligned. Travellers are advised to monitor late-night ticket releases—12306 routinely “recycles” unpaid reservations after 30 minutes—and consider detouring via nearby hubs such as Hangzhou East.
From a mobility-policy standpoint, the surge underscores rail’s growing competitiveness on sub-1,500 km corridors and the importance of integrating China’s e-ticket, real-name and health-declaration requirements into corporate booking tools.
