Photo taken on June 17, 2020 shows a view of Hong Kong Disneyland in south China's Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Disneyland will reopen on Thursday with reduced capacity and enhanced health and safety procedures, the theme park said on Monday. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

The woes of Hong Kong's tourism industry worsened in June, with visitor arrivals slumping 99.7 percent year-on-year to 14,600, reflecting the heavy impact of the global coronavirus pandemic on the local economy.

In the first half of this year, visitor arrivals dropped nearly 90 percent to 3.52 million, according to data released by the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) Wednesday. Arrivals from the Chinese mainland plunged 90 percent to 2.68 million in the first half, while those from other countries and regions dropped 88 percent to 835,000.

Timothy Chui Ting-pong, director of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, told the Global Times Wednesday that the city's tourism industry has been in a state of suspension for half a year, noting that some travel agencies have shut down due to social unrest.

"It's really hard… We're looking forward, hoping that Hong Kong can reopen tourism to arrivals from the mainland and Macao in October or November," Chui said, noting that fewer than 20 percent of the workers in travel agencies remain in their posts.

After a record number of local COVID-19 cases were reported, the Hong Kong government announced on Monday plans to tighten anti-epidemic measures again, such as stricter border controls and closures of entertainment venues.

The HKTB said on Wednesday that it will postpone a campaign to boost the city's tourism sector by encouraging residents to spend locally.

The Hong Kong Disneyland Resort suspended operations again as of Wednesday and Ocean Park did so Tuesday, less than a month after their resumptions in mid-June.

A new spike in COVID-19 infections in the city has made the city's economic recovery uncertain, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said in a blog post on Sunday, calling for flexible responses and confidence among citizens.

Liu Guohong, director of the Shenzhen-based Department of Finance and Modern Industries at the China Development Institute, told the Global Times Wednesday that some financial institutions in the Chinese mainland are thinking of closing their Hong Kong offices due to difficulty in cross-border personnel movements.

"It will be a long time before there's a full recovery of the Hong Kong economy. The city's GDP may contract this year," Liu said, noting that the most important task for Hong Kong now is to control the outbreak.

The Hong Kong government has rolled out the largest scale of relief measures in history worth HK$290 billion ($37.4 billion) to stabilize employment and reduce economic pressure on small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals.

"I hope that the Hong Kong government can strengthen cooperation with Shenzhen city to carry out large-scale COVID-19 nucleic tests and get the outbreak under control and resume overall economic activities and people-to-people exchanges as early as possible," Chui said.