HONG KONG - Hong Kong's visitor arrivals in July set a new record for single month arrivals by jumping 22.4 percent year-on-year to 3.84 million, the city's Tourism Board (TB) said here on Friday.

Hong Kong welcomed 23.17 million visitors in the first seven months of the year, up 15.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the TB data.

The visitor arrivals from the Chinese mainland last month also hit a single-month record high, surging by 33.1 percent from a year ago to 2.67 million, among whom those under the Individual Visit Scheme advanced 37.1 percent to 1.78 million.

Among the short-haul markets, the Republic of Korea performed best with a 17.9 percent growth to nearly 90,000 arrivals in July.

Singapore recorded a 16.3 percent rise, followed by Thailand 15.4 percent and Malaysia 12.8 percent, while visitors from Japan fell 3.4 percent to about 100,000.

In the long-haul market regions, arrivals remained at a similar level from a year ago, with Europe, Africa and the Middle East registering a slight decline of 0.4 percent, while the emerging market of Russia saw double-digit growth of 52.5 percent.