Labour-Day Golden Week brings 1.19 million visitors to Hong Kong, led by Lok Ma Chau rail crossing

Hong Kong’s first big tourism test of the year delivered robust numbers without serious disruption. Figures released by the Immigration Department on 6 May show that 1.19 million travellers entered the SAR between 1 and 5 May, an 8 percent increase on last year’s Labour-Day “Golden Week”. Mainland visitors—who accounted for 1.01 million arrivals—favoured the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line rail checkpoint and the West Kowloon high-speed-rail terminus, underscoring rail’s growing dominance over traditional bus and ferry options. To keep queues under control, the government’s inter-departmental festival task-force opened additional e-Channels, redeployed 300 immigration officers to front-line counters, and asked the MTR Corporation to run extra East Rail and high-speed-rail services to Futian and Shenzhen North.



At this stage, many companies also turned to specialist visa support. VisaHQ’s Hong Kong team (https://www.visahq.com/hong-kong/) can expedite travel documentation for staff and accompanying family members, monitor entry-restriction updates, and arrange China visa processing in bulk—freeing internal mobility managers to focus on logistics rather than paperwork. The service is particularly useful when rail itineraries change at short notice and travellers need multi-entry permits.

Hoteliers reported average occupancy of 90 percent, with room rates up 10 percent from previous long weekends. Malls in Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay logged double-digit sales growth, while the catering sector said turnover in tourist precincts jumped 20 percent. For corporate mobility teams the smooth handling of the surge is a positive signal ahead of the even busier summer rotation period. Travel planners moving staff between Hong Kong headquarters and mainland factories should still factor in rail bottlenecks: Lok Ma Chau handled more than a quarter of all arrivals, and any service interruption there would have city-wide knock-on effects. Advance ticket blocks on the high-speed-rail line and contingency ground-transport arrangements remain best practice. The data also highlight an emerging pattern: more than 60 percent of organised mainland tour groups now choose overnight stays, a trend that supports longer business-plus-leisure itineraries. Companies hosting trainings or conferences in May and June can leverage hotel group-booking discounts negotiated for Golden Week if they act quickly; most promotions expire once summer peak pricing kicks in.