Hong Kong recorded heavy cross-boundary traffic over the Mid-Autumn Festival weekend, with immigration figures showing a sharp rise in net outbound movement compared with the previous week.
According to data from the Immigration Department, the day after the festival (Sept 26) saw about 1.19 million passenger movements in and out of the city. Of these, around 561,000 were inbound and about 684,000 were outbound.
Hong Kong residents accounted for approximately 488,000 departures on Sept 26, a level that was described as broadly similar to other Saturdays in September. Excluding those leaving via the airport, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal, and the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, more than 80 per cent of resident departures—close to 400,000 trips—were made through land, sea and rail boundary crossings to travel north.
Among the various control points, Lo Wu recorded the highest number of resident departures, at about 117,000, followed by the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line control point (linked to Futian in Shenzhen), with around 108,000.
On the return side, about 368,000 resident trips were recorded as inbound on Sept 26, also broadly in line with other Saturdays this month.
Looking at the two-day period covering the festival day (Sept 25) and the following day (Sept 26), the report said there were nearly 970,000 departures by Hong Kong residents and close to 610,000 resident arrivals, resulting in a net outflow of roughly 360,000. This represented an increase of about 60 percent from the previous weekend's net outflow (Sept 18–19), when the figure was about 224,000.
The Chinese mainland formed a three-day break around the Mid-Autumn Festival, creating a "mini golden week." On Sept 26, about 160,000 inbound trips were made by mainland visitors to Hong Kong.
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