(Yicai Global) Jan. 6 -- Bookings for flights from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday surged 18 times from the same period last year, after China announced the resumption of cross-border travel yesterday.

China will resume free travel between Hong Kong and the mainland from Jan. 8, the State Council, the country’s cabinet, said yesterday.

Hong Kong residents can enter the mainland with a negative Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction test result within 48 hours, and will not have to take a PCR test on arrival. The mainland will resume passport applications for residents to visit Hong Kong for travel or business while transit services for entering the mainland from international airports in Hong Kong and Macao will also be restored.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Li Jiachao held a press conference yesterday to disclose the arrangements for the travel resumption in the first phase. Hong Kong will allow up to 60,000 people a day to go to the Chinese mainland by sea, land, and air from Jan. 8, he said.

To reduce cross-infections, negative PCR test results within 48 hours are required for people traveling between Hong Kong and the mainland, Li pointed out.

The mainland is the largest source of tourists and revenue for Hong Kong’s tourism industry. Some 55.91 million people visited Hong Kong in 2019, of which 78 percent were from the mainland, according to statistics from the Hong Kong Immigration Department.

The gradual relaxation of pandemic policies on the mainland has boosted the recovery of Hong Kong’s tourism sector. From Dec. 27 to Jan. 5, flight reservations to Hong Kong jumped 36 percent from a month earlier on travel platform Ctrip. Searches for ‘Hong Kong’ rocketed 85 percent.

Most flight bookings to Hong Kong during the period were from Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou, per Ctrip data. Advanced reservations from the mainland to Hong Kong during the Lunar New Year holiday surged 18 times from a year earlier.

Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway announced on Dec. 30 that it planned to resume routes to the mainland, and the high-speed railway would start trial operation on Jan. 3. The Hong Kong West Kowloon Railway Station has been closed for nearly three years since Jan. 30, 2020.

Editors: Shi Yi, Peter Thomas