Hong Kong has been accused of boosting its tourism figures by a third by including passengers who arrive in Hong Kong only to leave for other destinations on the same day, a news report said yesterday.
The territory's Tourism Board claimed it welcomed nearly 12 million visitors between January and September, but the figure includes more than 4 million who left Hong Kong the same day.
John Ap, an associate professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said many Chinese on their way to and from Taiwan were being "double-counted" on either way of their journey to boost the figures.
There are no direct flights from China to Taiwan, and many travellers transit in Hong Kong, passing through immigration but staying only for a few hours before catching connecting flights.
Only 7.59 million of the 11.74 million visitors counted in Hong Kong between January and September stayed overnight, and Ap argued officials should only count overnight visitors as tourists.
"The numbers will be significantly lower if the board takes out same-day visitors from the statistics," Ap told the South China Morning Post yesterday.
A board spokesman responded: "It's unfair to say they're not real visitors if they don't stay overnight because they're also shopping and spending money here."
Hong Kong claimed it is on course to receive around 15 million visitors this year, most of them from China.
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