“The full reopening of Hong Kong has resulted in a surge in participation from residents and tourists alike, with numerous mainland and overseas authors and exhibitors attending in person,” said Sophia Chong Suk-fan, the council’s acting executive director.

“The government’s distribution of consumption vouchers has also fuelled residents’ eagerness to spend at the three exhibitions, contributing to the vibrant and lively ambience of the events.”

The council said attendance at the seven-day event at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre reached 990,000, 10 per cent of whom were tourists, marking a return to pre-Covid levels.

By comparison, the number of visitors at the 2019 and 2018 events was 980,000 and 1.04 million, respectively.

Chung Hwa Book Co deputy editor-in-chief Lai Yiu-keung, whose company was among the 780 exhibitors at the event, said it recorded a 10 per cent growth in revenue over last year’s fair.

“We expected a great increase in traffic as the quarantine measures were dropped and we thought more readers would come back. But we didn’t see a significant increase in traffic except for Saturday,” he said. “We have more mainland and foreign readers than last year, but not as many as before the pandemic.”

Another subsidiary of Sino United Publishing, Open Page Publishing said sales levels had improved from the previous book fair in 2022.

“We did not see a large increase in traffic, but we expect sales could increase by more than 30 per cent, as we had more customers buying in larger quantities this year,” said Chen Minghua, the company’s editor-in-chief.

This year also saw Chung Hwa Book Co sell more than 100 copies of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent titles, such as his works on poverty alleviation, Lai said, adding it generally sold more than 500 per year at past events.

But Open Page’s Chen said readers of all ages had shown an interest in Xi’s separate five-volume series outlining his political philosophy and charting his work experiences in Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

Zheng Yanxiong, director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, earlier appealed to bookworms to read the series, calling it an “important reference” for the city’s development.

“Yesterday there was an old reader. He had bought the three other works at other booths, but just missed the two about Xi’s stories in Fujian,” Chen said.

“He anxiously came to us with a piece of newspaper [saying the books were sold here] and eventually got the remaining two from us.”

The vendors said their bestselling books included locally themed ones, Chinese translations of foreign novels and titles by science fiction writer Liu Cixin.

Leslie Ng Chi-ching, editor-in-chief at independent publisher Bbluesky, said sales at his booth rose by 10 to 20 per cent and visitor traffic grew by nearly 30 per cent from last year.

Travel books by veteran journalist and former Stand News columnist Allan Au Ka-lun were among the store’s bestselling items at the event, Ng said.

Au’s books were pulled from library shelves after national security police arrested him last year on suspicion of conspiring to publish and reproduce seditious materials under the now-closed media outlet.

“Many people still want to read these books. We believe the contents are fine, so we put them on sale,” Ng said.

But some vendors slammed organisers for scrapping the lower entry fee for those coming to the event during evenings.

Previous fairs reduced the admission fee from HK$25 to HK$10 after 7pm on select days, while the prices stayed at HK$30 throughout this year’s book fair.

“This year’s fair became quiet in the evening, as the HK$10 admission scheme was dropped. So our sales performed even worse than last year,” said Alexander Chan Kwok-wah, deputy general manager of Cite (Hong Kong) Publishing Group.

“I estimate that we saw a 20 per cent decrease in sales this year. If we had a busier fair in the evenings, we might have recorded a growth in sales.”

Meanwhile, bargain hunters took advantage of last-day discounts and brought along suitcases to stock up on books.

Shenzhen student and first-time attendee Thomas Zhu said he, along with his friend, spent about HK$2,000 on history books as he scouted for titles not available in mainland China.

“The original prices were scary. But they are OK after the discounts, similar in price to books sold on the mainland,” Zhu said.

School student Sofia Chan, who also stopped by last year’s book fair, said the crowds seemed larger this time around. The 17-year-old added that she spent no more than HK$1,000 on titles such as exercise books, similar to the previous year.