Epidemic may hurt long-haul travel to HK
The outbreak in Asia may dampen hopes of a rebound in long-haul arrivals into Hong Kong, the Travel Industry Council warned yesterday.
Council chairman Ronnie Ho Pak-ting said long-haul arrivals from Europe and the United States would not go back to pre-Sars levels in the near future. 'It's too early to estimate the exact drop in arrivals now,' he said. 'We are unsure where these tourists will go if they don't come to Asia.'
According to the Tourism Board, arrivals from Europe and United States totalled 780,843 and 683,791 respectively last year, a drop of 28 and 31.7 per cent over 2002.
Mr Ho admitted that the bird flu outbreak had created 'a psychological barrier' for travellers.
He believed that the bird flu outbreak could cause a 10 to 20 per cent drop in outbound travel figures in the traditionally low season between Lunar New Year and the Easter holidays.
But over the entire year, he would 'still anticipate that there would be a double-digit growth in outbound travel figures because of the continual economic recovery'.
Richard Willis, vice-chairman of Hong Kong Travel Agents' Association, said the recent price war among local operators on tours to Southeast Asia would continue.
'The prices of tours to Asian countries dropped by more than 50 per cent in the low season,' he said. 'This is because hotels in bird-flu affected countries like Thailand have cut prices immensely.'
Francis Lai Yu-hung, general manager of group tour travel services at Miramar Express, said the company's revenue this month dropped by almost 50 per cent.
'We still have two to three tour groups every week to Thailand every week. We used to have at least a tour to Thailand every day. The price for a five-day tour to the country has dropped from $1,110 to $800,' he said. Travellers were avoiding Vietnam and turning to Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Australia instead, he added.
