Hong Kong Tourism Board said Wednesday that the number of visitors to Hong Kong in the first quarter of this year climbed 1.8% from a year earlier to 7.4 million, boosted by growth in the number of visitors from mainland China.

In March alone, the number of visitors to the region edged up 1.7% year on year to 2.45 million, including 1.44 million from the mainland, up 13.3%.

In the first three months, a total of 4.68 million mainlanders visited the region, an increase of 12.6% from the same period of last year.

However, due to the ongoing global financial recession and the threat of the spreading H1N1 flu, it is still uncertain whether this increase in tourism will last.

The number of visitors from faraway regions has experienced a continuous decline since the fourth quarter of last year, and recorded double-digit drops in the first quarter of 2009 as a result of low consumer confidence during the economic downturn.

In late March, the Hong Kong Tourism Commission said it would invest HK$50 million to improve local resorts to attract more visitors, China Knowledge reported earlier.