Ocean Park on Monday said it is slowly recovering from the pandemic low, as it recently recorded the highest number of visitors since April last year.

However, it conceded that Hong Kong’s recent border reopening with the mainland brought in fewer tourists than expected.

"At the moment, we are seeing non-business, school travelling, as well as family reunion visitors from China… but at the moment, we believe there are fewer tourists than expected," the chairman of the park, Paulo Pong, said.

"The border restrictions between Hong Kong and the mainland are easing gradually, and the high-speed rail resumed operations yesterday [on Sunday], these will have a positive impact on the local tourism, hotels, catering, retail, and other industries. We expect mainland and overseas tourists visiting Hong Kong and Ocean Park to increase gradually.”

Pong said the park is recruiting 350 more full-time staff to cater for an anticipated surge in visitors over the coming months.

Last month, the theme park announced it had recorded a deficit of almost HK$1.82 billion for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

Its attendance, meanwhile, stood at 1.4 million.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Board said more than 350,000 tourists visited Hong Kong in the final quarter of last year.

It pointed out that visitor numbers gradually picked up after the easing of Covid-related travel restrictions.

Around half of the tourists between October and December came from the mainland, while the remaining came mostly from the Philippines, Taiwan and the United States.

"[The Tourism Board] expected that Hong Kong’s tourism will be revived progressively, and has gradually stepped up promotions in advance in selected visitor source markets to broadcast the positive message that Hong Kong is welcoming back visitors," the board said in a statement.

For the whole of 2022, a little more than 600,000 tourists visited the SAR.

Hong Kong saw nearly 56 million visitors in 2019, the year before the pandemic began.
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Last updated: 2023-01-16 HKT 17:55