HONG KONG, November 27. /TASS/. The number of tourists from Russia visiting Hong Kong in January-September shot up 55 times compared to last year to 33,400 people, according to data TASS obtained from the Hong Kong Tourism Board.

According to the board, in January-September of this year, 33,415 tourists from Russia visited Hong Kong. For reference, 606 tourists visited the country during the same period last year. This is a 5,414% increase, the board’s documents say.

Earlier, the Hong Kong Tourism Board reported that over 26.78 million tourists visited the city in the first ten months of this year. According to forecasts, by the end of the year the figure will exceed 30 million people.

In 2018, 65 million tourists visited Hong Kong. In 2019, amid protests, this figure dropped to 55.9 million people. During the pandemic, the number of tourists fell sharply - 3.6 million tourists visited the city in 2020, 91,400 people in 2021, 604,600 people in 2022.

Earlier, the press service of the Russian airline Aeroflot reported that the carrier intends to resume regular flights from Moscow to Hong Kong starting on December 23 of this year. There will be three flights per week: on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Return flights from Hong Kong are scheduled for Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. As Aeroflot noted, wide-body Airbus A330 airliners will operate the flights.