Hong Kong’s Immigration Department has released provisional statistics showing 1,273,533 passenger movements through the city’s air, land and sea checkpoints on 19 February, the final day of the three-day Lunar New Year public holiday. Of these, 588,296 were departures—roughly 60% by Hong Kong residents and the rest by visitors—while 685,237 were arrivals.
The busiest land ports were Lo Wu (122,361 crossings) and Shenzhen Bay (198,453 crossings for the full holiday period). At Lo Wu, 75% of travellers used automated e-channels, a record utilisation rate since the age threshold was lowered to seven last month. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge processed close to 96,000 outbound trips in one day, underscoring the bridge’s growing role for Greater Bay Area commuters.
Immigration officials had earlier forecast 11.38 million cross-boundary trips between 14 and 23 February. To cope, the department cancelled frontline leave, opened temporary counters and worked with mainland authorities to synchronise peak-hour staffing. No major delays were reported, suggesting the post-pandemic capacity upgrades at Lok Ma Chau Spur Line and Lo Wu are bearing fruit.
![More than 1.27 million border crossings recorded over Lunar New Year long weekend]()
Before arranging these increasingly frequent border hops, travelers and HR teams can tap VisaHQ’s Hong Kong platform (https://www.visahq.com/hong-kong/) for real-time visa and travel-document support covering mainland China, Macao and more than 200 other destinations, ensuring that paperwork doesn’t become a bottleneck when checkpoints are at their busiest.
For corporate mobility teams, the figures confirm that physical travel between Hong Kong and the mainland is firmly back to pre-Covid levels, an important data point when planning assignment rotations and intra-GBA meetings. Employers should, however, remind staff of likely congestion spikes on 22 February, the forecast return-travel peak, and encourage early arrival at control points or the use of off-peak ferries via SkyPier.
Tourism analysts note that the visitor mix is gradually diversifying: mainland residents accounted for 55% of incoming visitors, down from 70% a year ago, as long-haul tourists from Southeast Asia and Europe take advantage of expanded flight schedules and promotional fares.
The busiest land ports were Lo Wu (122,361 crossings) and Shenzhen Bay (198,453 crossings for the full holiday period). At Lo Wu, 75% of travellers used automated e-channels, a record utilisation rate since the age threshold was lowered to seven last month. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge processed close to 96,000 outbound trips in one day, underscoring the bridge’s growing role for Greater Bay Area commuters.
Immigration officials had earlier forecast 11.38 million cross-boundary trips between 14 and 23 February. To cope, the department cancelled frontline leave, opened temporary counters and worked with mainland authorities to synchronise peak-hour staffing. No major delays were reported, suggesting the post-pandemic capacity upgrades at Lok Ma Chau Spur Line and Lo Wu are bearing fruit.
Before arranging these increasingly frequent border hops, travelers and HR teams can tap VisaHQ’s Hong Kong platform (https://www.visahq.com/hong-kong/) for real-time visa and travel-document support covering mainland China, Macao and more than 200 other destinations, ensuring that paperwork doesn’t become a bottleneck when checkpoints are at their busiest.
For corporate mobility teams, the figures confirm that physical travel between Hong Kong and the mainland is firmly back to pre-Covid levels, an important data point when planning assignment rotations and intra-GBA meetings. Employers should, however, remind staff of likely congestion spikes on 22 February, the forecast return-travel peak, and encourage early arrival at control points or the use of off-peak ferries via SkyPier.
Tourism analysts note that the visitor mix is gradually diversifying: mainland residents accounted for 55% of incoming visitors, down from 70% a year ago, as long-haul tourists from Southeast Asia and Europe take advantage of expanded flight schedules and promotional fares.
