Passengers crowd West Kowloon Station in Hong Kong on February 22, 2026, as the Immigration Department of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region expects a peak in cross-boundary travel that day. Photo: VCG

A growing number of Chinese mainland visitors spent the Spring Festival holidays in Hong Kong and Macao this year, data showed. This was coupled with increased travel activities in the mainland by residents of the two special administrative regions (SARs). A Chinese analyst said that the trend reflected the closer integration between the two SARs and the mainland as well as cities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA).

Visits from the mainland to Hong Kong climbed 13 percent year-on-year to 1.02 million from February 16 to 21, according to Hong Kong news outlet tkww.hk on Monday.

With a nine-day holiday at their disposal, many visitors from the mainland immersed themselves in the festive vibes of the city, visiting shopping malls, colleges and the city's tourist attractions, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Paul Chan, financial secretary of the Hong Kong SAR government, had estimated that a total of 1.43 million visits would be registered during the holidays, with an increase of 6 percent in terms of average daily visitor volume.

For Macao, a marked increase in the two-way flow of people also took place.

From February 15 to 19, which marked the first five days of the Spring Festival holidays for mainland residents, the number of entries and exits from the Hengqin port reached 477,000 for passengers and 49,000 for vehicles, according to CCTV News. The number of passengers increased by 30.3 percent year-on-year, while that of vehicles surged by 47.7 percent.

For Hong Kong, the rise in the number of mainland travelers has underlined the recovery of the city since 2019, and is a harbinger of deeper interaction with the mainland, Song Ding, a research fellow at the China Development Institute, told the Global Times on Monday, noting that in the past year Hong Kong continued to see its status as an international financial, shipping and trade center strengthening.

The steady rise in the number of mainland tourists to Hong Kong was a result of multiple factors, reflecting that efforts by the city to promote itself to mainland residents have paid off, according to the analyst.

Song noted that there is immense potential for increasingly convenient people-to-people exchanges in the GBA, boosted by stability, increased willingness by mainland residents to visit the two SARs, and constant development in hard and soft infrastructure.

Tourist visits to Hong Kong stood at 49.9 million in 2025, up 12 percent year-on-year, buoyed by international travel, Xinhua reported in January, citing data from the Hong Kong Tourism Board.