During the seven-month period, total visitor numbers still grew 11.1 per cent to 40.06 million. At the beginning of the year, the board forecast the figure for 2019 would climb 1.9 per cent to a record 66.4 million.

The board warned of an even worse performance in August, after the protests spread to Hong Kong International Airport on Lantau. Thousands of protesters occupied the terminal building for six days in a row and there were clashes with police and some visitors. Almost 1,000 flights were cancelled during a partial shutdown of the airport over two days.

“Preliminary figures show a 30 per cent decline in the number of visitor arrivals in the first half of August,” it said. “The travel trade has reported that the number of forward bookings in September and October has also dropped significantly.”

In June, tourist arrival numbers jumped 8.5 per cent to 5.14 million. In July, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific led the declines in tourist sources, dropping 13.3 per cent, followed by Taiwan (down 11.8 per cent) and North Asia (down 9.7 per cent).

The anti-government protests began on June 9 when an estimated 1 million people marched through the city, opposing an extradition bill that would have allowed the transfer of criminal suspects to mainland China, among other places. A week later, organisers claimed 2 million people took to the streets, though police gave much lower turnout estimates for both.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor suspended the bill on June 15 and later said it was dead.

Protesters have continued to press for her to withdraw it completely and set up an independent inquiry to probe the police’s use of force, among five demands.

There have been calls by demonstrators to block road and rail links serving the airport on September 1 and 2 as protests at the airport are banned by a court injunction.

Meanwhile, the Census and Statistics Department revealed there had been an 11.4 per cent slump in retail sales, to HK$34.4 billion, in July year on year, the sharpest decline since February 2016.

This marked a significant downturn from the annualised 6.7 per cent decrease in June. For the first seven months of this year, retail sales shrank 3.8 per cent.

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A government spokesman said retail sales worsened further to post a double-digit year-on-year fall in July, reflecting the weak local consumer sentiment and significant disruptions to inbound tourism and consumption-related activities arising from what he called recent local social incidents.

He warned the decline would accelerate further if the protests did not stop, while the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies – the United States and China – had escalated recently.

In July, all but supermarkets registered declines in sales. Big ticket items such as jewellery, watches and clocks led the fall, down 24.4 per cent from the same period last year.

Annie Tse Yau On-yee, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Retail Management Association, said August’s retail sales would deteriorate further based on preliminary feedback from some of its 9,000 members.

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She said some members’ sales in tourist districts had slumped 50 per cent while those in areas affected by the protests had fared even worse, experiencing falls of about 80 per cent.

Tourist areas such as Causeway Bay, Wan Chai and Admiralty were hit by protests along with the residential districts of Wong Tai Sin, Sham Shui Po, Sheung Shui and Tai Po.

“They are pessimistic about the outlook in September as well,” Tse said.

The association earlier this month urged landlords to halve rents for six months for retailers, but at best only a few offered a 20 per cent cut on a one-off basis, she said.