Hong Kong's tourism industry performed strongly in 2004, with visitor arrivals reaching an all-time high of 21.81 million, an increase of almost one third compared with 2002, the year before the SARS outbreak, said Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Henry Tang on Wednesday.

When presenting the 2005-2006 government budget to the Legislative Council, Tang said this boom encouraged growth in tourism-related sectors such as the catering, retail and hotel industries.

In 2004, under the Individual Visit Scheme, 4.26 million visits were made by mainland visitors to Hong Kong. Meanwhile, visitor arrivals from Hong Kong's traditional long-haul markets increased steadily at a rate of 8 percent, breaking the record set in 2002, Tang said.

"We expect 2005 to be an even better year for the tourism industry. Hong Kong Disneyland is scheduled to open in September, an event which the market is eagerly anticipating, and recruitment of 5,000 staff is fully under way," Tang said.

By the end of this year or early next year, a number of other major tourism infrastructure projects will also be completed. In parallel, a number of new hotels will have opened by the end of 2006, providing about 14,000 rooms and employment for 7,500 staff, said Tang.

He said the government is also working on strengthening the further development of Hong Kong's tourism industry, for example, by encouraging eco-tourism in the Northern New Territories, so that nature lovers may enjoy the natural beauty of Hong Kong.

Tang proposed to earmark funding of 500 million Hong Kong dollars (US$64.1 million) to implement a series of tourism promotion measures, which are expected to bring over 1.2 million additional visitors in the next two years, as well as an increase of nearly 2 million days in visitors' length of stay, and additional economic benefits of nearly 10 billion Hong Kong dollars.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board anticipates that, by the end of 2006, the overall number of visitor arrivals will exceed 27 million.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2004)