Hong Kong's tourism industry has made a solid start in 2004 with visitors arrivals in January reaching 1.74 million, a 13.1 percent increase over the same month in 2003.

Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) announced Thursday that arrivals from the Chinese mainland, boosted by the Lunar New Year "golden week" holiday, grew 48.5 percent to 1.11 million in January, the highest number of mainland visitors yet recorded in a single month.

Nearly 32 percent of the mainland visitors arrived under the individual visa scheme from 16 cities where the scheme has now come into operation.

Only 10 days of Lunar New Year alone attracted more than 448,000 mainland tourists, another record number.

HKTB Executive Director Clara Chong cautioned, however, "It was too early to draw clear conclusions from the January figures as Chinese New Year fell in February last year. We really need to see the January and February figures together before we can see clear trends emerging."

Apart from Chinese mainland, most other markets saw fewer arrivals for January than last year's same period. Leisure travel is still yet to regain its full pre-SARS momentum in some key markets such as Japan, said HKTB.

According to HKTB, in January 2004, 64.7 percent of the total arrivals stayed for one night or longer, compared with only 62.4 percent in the first month of 2003.

(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2004)