Along Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour on a March weekend, tourists armed with selfie sticks jostled for space as they took photos with the city’s famed skyline as a backdrop. Nearby, tour guides told the stories of Bruce Lee and Tony Leung, two local actors featured in the Avenue of Stars – Hong Kong’s answer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Years ago, the chatter would likely have been a symphony of languages, from English to Korean to French and others. But on that Saturday afternoon, little else but Mandarin could be heard.
Since Hong Kong fully reopened to travellers last February after three years of strict pandemic rules, mainland Chinese visitors have largely returned to the city. Data from the Hong Kong Tourism Board shows that the number of mainland tourists in the last quarter of 2023 had recovered to around 80 per cent of the average in the five-year period between 2015 and 2019.
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