Between April 27 and May 4, the extra 11 pairs of trains will be in service. This year's Labor Day celebrations on the Chinese mainland are from 29 April to 3 May.
Fanny Yeung, executive director of The Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, said on Monday that about 600,000 tourists are expected to visit the special administrative region during the holiday stretch. Under the Individual Travel Scheme, about 80 percent of those would be mainland tourists.
Tourism sees a surge ahead of May's holiday.
Its total passenger flow for the upcoming holidays is expected to return to about 60 percent of the pre-pandemic levels.
The HKSAR statistics showed that nearly one million tourists from the mainland arrived in Hong Kong during the four-day May Day holidays in 2019. In 2018, some 600,000 mainland visitors came to New York City during a three-day May Day break.
The full resumption of normal travel between Hong Kong and the mainland in February this year has resulted in many tourists choosing to travel on the high-speed rail link. On the six-day Qing Ming and Easter holidays last month, about 150,000 Hong Kong residents traveled to the mainland on the high-speed rail, causing long queues at Hong Kong's sole high-speed rail station.
The May Day holidays are forecasted to attract more mainland tourists than the Qing Ming and Easter break, as the mainland does not celebrate Easter.
The Hong Kong rail operator MTR Corporation said the coming weekend will be the peak travel period for the holidays. To cope with the expected surge in demand by passengers, Hong Kong West Kowloon Station will strengthen broadcasting services and distribute information via different channels besides increasing manpower to assist passengers.
Passengers can purchase tickets via the official 12306 ticketing website, mobile app and designated travel agencies, as well as through ticketing machines and counters at West Kowloon Station.
Since cross-boundary travel resumed, many Hong Kong banks have extended service hours to meet the increasing demand from tourists. China CITIC Bank International will extend its operating hours at four designated branches during the May holidays.
READ MORE: Cross-boundary travel to peak during holiday break.
Caspar Tsui Ying-waiTsui Ying-wai, the chief executive of the Federation of Hong Kong hotel owners, said the hotel industry is optimistic about the upcoming May Day holiday, as averagely over 70 percent of the city's hotel rooms were booked by mid-April. Tsui is confident that some hotels in popular tourism locations may get 90 percent of their rooms booked at the five-day hotels.