Roughly 1.4 million tourists came to Hong Kong the during the eight-day mainland Spring Festival golden week, including 1.2 million visitors from the mainland, according to the executive director of the Travel Industry Council.

Fanny Yeung told an RTHK programme on Saturday that of the total, about 79,000 people visited in tour groups - 83 percent of which stayed overnight.

Yeung was optimistic with the fact that 15 per cent of those from tour groups had stayed two or three nights in the SAR - an uptick from last year.

“Although the number of inbound tourists dropped, they stayed here for longer and we are happy to see this phenomenon,” Yeung said.

But she said the city needs more tour guides who can speak foreign languages other than Chinese and English.

Yeung said some travel agencies were unable to host group tours from countries like Thailand, as they could not find guides who speak Thai.

Speaking on the same programme, tourism sector lawmaker Perry Yiu said hotel occupancy rate reached about 90 percent during the golden week, and room rate dropped about 10 percent compared to last year.