HONG KONG - Visitor arrivals to Hong Kong in May fell by a provisional 13.5 percent from a year earlier to
2.03 million, a spokeswoman from the Hong Kong Tourism Board said on Wednesday.

This brings cumulative arrivals for the first five months of 2009 to a provisional 11.87 million, down 1.4 percent from the same period last year.

Visitor arrivals from mainland China in May fell by 9.9 percent from a year earlier to a provisional 1.15 million.

The tourism board said the drop in visitors from the mainland coincided with Hong Kong's announcement on May 1 that it had Asia's first confirmed case of the H1N1 flu virus.

The tourism board is due to release official May data later this month.