With Easter and the Qingming Festival forming an unprecedented five-day break this year, Hong Kong’s key gateways—from West Kowloon high-speed-rail station to Chek Lap Kok airport—were teeming with travellers on 4 April. Photos published by China Daily show snaking queues of outbound holiday-makers heading for mainland destinations, while inbound halls bustled with regional tourists arriving for spring events and shopping. Pre-holiday forecasts by the Immigration Department had already warned of single-day passenger flows topping one million at land checkpoints. Airlines responded by adding over 70 charter and ad-hoc flights, and the MTR Corporation ran extra high-speed-rail services to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Crowds also reflect a broader trend: since mainland China reinstated multiple-entry permits for non-Guangdong residents last October, two-way leisure trips have rebounded faster than expected. Travel agencies report that Hong Kong-Macau-Guangdong circuit tours for foreign visitors are selling out weeks ahead, aided by streamlined e-channel enrolment for short-stay foreigners. For global-mobility teams, the surge highlights the need to schedule cross-boundary employee trips outside peak holiday windows or build extra buffer time. Companies should also remind assignees to pre-register for e-channels and check luggage allowances as regional carriers operate with smaller aircraft during chartered peaks. Local officials said new crowd-management technologies—such as AI-predicted wait-time displays—kept processing times within 30 minutes for most travellers, but urged passengers to remain flexible and arrive early.
Source: China Daily Hong Kong
