With a population of 6.9 million people, Hong Kong is expecting to receive less than half a million visitors in the next week, when the mainland celebrating a week-long Labor Day vacation.

It's estimated that 420,000 mainland visitors will arrive in Hong Kong during their "Golden Week" vacation, the city's acting commissioner for tourism Maisie Cheng said on Thursday.

Though the vacation will officially start on May 1 and last until May 7, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is expected to feel effects of the wave of visitors over a 10-day period, namely from April 29 to May 8.

Among the visitors, 60 percent will be those travel by themselves under the Individual Visit Scheme and 10 percent will come in tour groups. Meanwhile, 85 percent of all mainland visitors are expected to enter Hong Kong through three land check points.

In Hong Kong, people will only get the Labor Day off on Monday, but the HKSAR authorities are also expecting huge flow of locals traveling northward to the mainland in a long weekend combining the previous Saturday and Sunday.

Hong Kong's immigration authorities estimated that the flow of people crossing the check points will exceed six million over the coming week, a 14 percent higher than that of last year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2006)