More than 619,000 Chinese mainland tourists visited Hong Kong during the Lunar New Year period (Feb. 4-17), up 12 percent over the year-ago period, said Hong Kong Immigration Department Friday.

Among them, 327,000 were individual visitors, representing a daily average of more than 23,000, up 57 percent over last year's same period.

The Immigration Department said, passenger throughput during the Lunar New Year period also created new daily record highs at two cross-boundary checkpoints.

A record for Hong Kong International Airport was hit on Feb. 13(the fifth day of the lunar new year) with more than 108,000 passengers passing through, while the Macao Ferry Terminal hit a record on Feb. 12 with more than 67,000 passengers.

From Feb. 4 to Feb. 17, more than 7.98 million people traveled in and out of Hong Kong through land, sea and air checkpoints, up 15 percent on the same period last year.

The total passenger throughput at land-boundary checkpoints was more than 5.77 million, up 17 percent on the 4.93 million passengers recorded during the same period last year.

To cope with the large rise in passengers, the department redeployed 228 officers to reinforce boundary and sea control points. Passenger traffic was smooth and orderly and the majority of passengers were able to clear immigration within 30 minutes.

(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2005)