The two cases ­involved a 51-year-old man from the United Kingdom and a three-year-old from Mongolia. Fewer than 10 preliminary-positive infections were recorded.

The 36 hotels currently approved to serve as quarantine hotels – a list that is updated every three months – were booked at 84 per cent capacity from September to November, according to the Food and Health Bureau. The net increase in the number of designated hotels for the coming round is four after it was previously announced that Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel and Towers in Tsim Sha Tsui would stop running quarantine services on November 9.

Michael Li Hon-shing, executive director of the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, earlier on Tuesday predicted that the government would introduce another 2,000 quarantine rooms, as he said the industry was readying for a busy time in the coming months.

“We expect more residents will come back [to Hong Kong] during and after the Christmas holiday, and the government can estimate the number by checking flight bookings with the airlines,” Li told a radio programme.

He noted that while the government had typically chosen mid-range and budget hotels priced between HK$600 (US$77) and HK$800 per night, adding some five-star accommodation to the mix could help meet demand among returning travellers for a higher level of service and more comfortable rooms.

“I think the demand for that is not that huge, but it must have its own market,” he said. “I believe the market for rooms priced at about HK$1,000 is larger.”

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The iClub offers the cheapest rooms of the newly added hotels, starting at HK$500 per night, while the upmarket Lanson Place charges a minimum of HK$1,339.

Last month, the Hong Kong government sent letters to about 2,000 hotels and guesthouses holding relevant licences to encourage them to join the designated hotel scheme in a bid to meet customer demand, driven by residents returning to their home city.

Li said hotels considering joining the scheme had to weigh their own strategies, including whether they preferred to focus on longer-term tenants or the burgeoning “staycation” market.

“They may worry that future customers could be concerned that they had been a quarantine hotel before … But they may also hope to boost the occupancy rate by becoming a quarantine facility. It’s up to the hotels’ business strategy,” he said.

Hong Kong has imposed one of the world’s strictest policies for inbound travellers, requiring those from countries deemed high-risk – a list that includes Britain, the United States and Thailand – to complete up to three weeks of compulsory hotel quarantine.

The limited supply of government-approved hotels had left thousands of travellers to the city scrambling to book rooms and rearrange flights in recent months.

Meanwhile, foreign domestic helpers, who mainly come to the city from the Philippines or Indonesia, have just two options – the 409-room Silka Hotel Tsuen Wan or the government-run Penny’s Bay quarantine facility, which has 1,000 slots.

Every room at both properties was snapped up within minutes of becoming available, as employers and employment agencies rushed to reserve slots for their workers.

According to government figures, the city had a total of 315 licensed hotel properties supplying 87,318 rooms as of August.