An aerial drone photo taken on Oct. 19, 2025 shows a cruise ship passing under the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in south China. (Xinhua/Deng Hua)

The Zhuhai road port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has handled more than 100 million inbound and outbound passenger trips as of Tuesday morning since the mega project opened to traffic in October 2018, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday.

The 100 millionth traveler completed facial recognition clearance through the immigration smart express channel of the bridge's Zhuhai Highway Port in Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province at about 8am on Tuesday.

"It took more than five years to reach the first 50 million passenger trips [since it was put into operation in 2018], but breaking through the second 50 million only took one year and eight months," Chen Faqiu, chief of the bridge's immigration checkpoint, was quoted as saying in the Xinhua report.

The bustling traffic at the port reflects the accelerated integration of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) on all fronts, including personnel exchange, culture, tourism, industrial cooperation, and coordinated economic development. 

The bridge has enabled the "one-hour premium living circle" to move from vision to reality, and thus offers a vivid embodiment of the shared aspirations, journeys, and prosperity across the GBA, analysts noted.

The 55-kilometer bridge links China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), the Macao SAR, and the city of Zhuhai in Guangdong Province, and is the world's longest bridge-and-tunnel sea crossing. The bridge's operation has shortened the drive from the Hong Kong SAR to Zhuhai and the Macao SAR from 3 hours to approximately 45 minutes, significantly reducing the spatial and temporal distance among the three cities. 

As accompanying measures such as the Northbound Travel for Hong Kong and Macao Vehicle policy as well as the Southbound Travel for Guangdong Vehicles policy were successively implemented, the bridge has witnessed the accelerating integration of the GBA.

Since the opening of the port, the number of inbound and outbound Hong Kong and Macao residents has exceeded 58.73 million, accounting for 58.7 percent of the total passenger flow at the port, the Xinhua report noted. The upbeat data reflects the surging enthusiasm of Hong Kong and Macao residents in traveling to the Chinese mainland. 

In 2025, the number of inbound and outbound Hong Kong and Macao residents reached nearly 18 million, up nearly 300 percent compared with 2019. 

The interest of mainland residents in going to the Hong Kong and Macao SARs has also been on the rise. Since the port opened, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge inspection station has processed more than 39.38 million mainland tourists, with more than 12.57 million in 2025 alone, a record high, according to the Xinhua report.

An increasing number of international tourists have also been opting to pass through the port - the only port on the Chinese mainland that is directly connected with Hong Kong International Airport by road and also offers 240-hour visa-free transit entry, boosted by the implementation of policies such as "Fly-Via-Zhuhai-HK" service.

In 2025, the number of foreign tourists inspected by the bridge's Zhuhai road port exceeded 569,000, up more than 28.7 percent year-on-year.

Global Times