GUANGZHOU, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- More than 93.34 million inbound and outbound passenger trips had been recorded through the Zhuhai port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge as of Wednesday, seven years after the bridge opened to traffic.

According to the bridge's border inspection station, they handled 12.88 million passenger trips in 2019 and 860,000 vehicle trips that year. These numbers rose to 27 million and 5.55 million, respectively, in 2024 -- and have exceeded 25.1 million and 5.46 million, respectively, so far this year, up 17 and 25 percent year on year, respectively.

"With the continuing growth trend of passenger and vehicle flows at the port, it is expected that in 2025 total passenger trips through the port will exceed 30 million and total vehicle flow will be over 6 million," said Chen Faqiu, head of the inspection station.

The 55-kilometer bridge linking Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region and the city of Zhuhai, all in south China, opened to traffic on October 23, 2018. It is the world's longest bridge-and-tunnel sea crossing.

Expansion of individual travel from the mainland to Hong Kong and Macao has significantly boosted tourism across the bridge. Data from the inspection station showed that since the beginning of this year, the station has handled more than 10.15 million visitors from China's mainland, a record, with this figure including 4.6 million visitors holding tourist visas.

Meanwhile, the bridge has shortened the driving time from Hong Kong to Zhuhai and Macao from three hours to about 45 minutes. In 2023, the Zhuhai port had seen a daily vehicle flow of roughly 9,000, which has grown to more than 18,000 currently. ■