The Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong recently announced that in March 2011, the number of registered inbound mainland tour groups registration increased by 9.9% year on year to 7,482.

In the first three months of 2011 the number of registered inbound mainland tour groups rose 2.5% year on year to 20,394 — according to figures released by the TIC.

TIC said that total arrivals rose 11.9% from a year ago to 6.52 million in the period from January to February.

The number of individual arrivals from mainland China in February declined 0.1% from a year earlier to just over two million — accounting for 68.7% of the total arrivals.