Ngong Ping 360 sees drop of visitor numbers in 2019

Ngong Ping 360 said today visitor numbers last year declined by 20.6 percent year-on-year to 1.45 million, while the average number of visitors per day was 4,445, a 17.5 percent decrease from 2018.

Among the guests, 56 percent were from Western and Asian areas, 25 percent were from China and Macau and 19 percent were Hong Kong residents. The average spending per guest increased by 4 percent from 2018, and was the highest spending of the past 10 years.

The company said average cable car reliability of 99.93 percent last year was an historic high, equivalent to a delay of less than 1 minute for every 8 hours of operation.

Managing Director Andy Lau said in the past year, Ngong Ping 360 benefited from the completion of the infrastructure project and the good numbers of visitors, recording a more than 10 percent increase in visitors in the first half of the year, but in the second half of the year, visitor numbers dropped and a significant decline was recorded in the fourth quarter.

"To respond to this situation, we targeted the local market and introduced special offers for Hong Kong residents, such as the limited-time grand-opening ticket price in October, and the special offer for children around Christmas. As a result, the average daily number of local visitors increased by more than 10 percent in the second half of 2019," he said.