This photo shows tourists on board a sightseeing boat at Victoria Bay in Hong Kong, June 12, 2021. (WU XIAOCHU / XINHUA)
HONG KONG – The number of inbound visitors to Hong Kong remained low in June as restrictions over cross-border travel remained in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) said Thursday that the provisional visitor arrivals last month stood at 6,200, a 57.6-percent drop year-on-year, with a daily average of around 207 visitors.
To further boost local tourism, the HKTB announced plans to offer another 190 free local tours to residents who have been vaccinated
The cumulative visitor arrivals were around 34,000 in the first half of the year, representing a 99-percent plunge from the corresponding period in 2020.
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To further boost local tourism, the HKTB announced plans to offer another 190 free local tours to residents who have been vaccinated. The first round of the program, launched to encourage vaccination and help Hong Kong achieve herd immunity, has received an overwhelming response.
No new COVID-19 cases were reported in Hong Kong on Thursday, the second day of zero new cases this month. Over the past two weeks, there were 32 new infections, including 30 imported from overseas.
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Nearly 2.7 million residents have taken at least one shot of the vaccines since the rollout of the citywide vaccination program in late February, accounting for 39.7 percent of the eligible population. Among them, some 1.88 million people have been fully vaccinated.
At a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Council on Thursday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said more than 70 percent of the city’s 64,000 frontline civil servants have been vaccinated. Those who do not receive vaccination are required to get tested regularly.
The government may no longer provide free tests to them in a bid to encourage vaccination, Lam said.
With Xinhua inputs