"Today's income increased by 70 to 80 percent compared to the daily figure during the pandemic," said a restaurant operator at Futian Port.

"I could only have my restaurants served for limited customers from neighbourhoods in the past three years," she added, "now I am ready for tourists coming back."

Commuters queued up to ship goods purchased in Hong Kong, including medication, rapid antigen test kits or gifts for Chinese New Year, to cities in the mainland.

"I hope the upcoming Chinese New Year will bring more income from cross-border travellers," a staff member at a delivery service point at Futian Port said.

Tang Ping-keung, Hong Kong's security chief said the city is prepared to proactively combat smuggling activities or fake goods traders.

"We believe that with our current system of screening cross-border visitors - which requires they present nucleic acid test results and book travel quotas online in advance - the number of these traders will not be high," he said.

The authorities are also working with the mainland government to deploy enforcement actions on those illegal activities, Tang added.