Solo travel scheme may cover entire delta
Idea before State Council would give a third of mainlanders access to HK
The State Council has been asked to consider extending the solo travel scheme to all nine mainland provinces within the pan-Pearl River Delta area, an official from Si-chuan said yesterday.
If approved, about a third of the mainland's population would have access to Hong Kong and Macau.
The proposals were outlined yesterday by Jia Jiang , director of the Sichuan government's office in Guangzhou. He was speaking on the sidelines of a preparatory meeting for the second pan-Pearl River Delta conference.
Sichuan's Deputy Governor Yang Zhiwen told the meeting the National Development and Reform Commission had also agreed in principle to include the area in the 11th Five-Year Plan, to be launched next year. Writing the regional grouping into the plan would give it impetus.
'We requested that the State Council approves speeding up the opening of solo travel to the other seven provinces,' said Mr Jia. At present, Guangdong and Fujian are covered by the solo travellers' scheme.
The Hong Kong tourism industry yesterday responded cautiously to the proposal. Hong Kong Inbound Travel Association chairman Paul Leung Yiu-lam said the expansion would increase tourism by only 10 to 20 per cent.
'Even with the scheme, many of [the tourists] are still going to go on tours. But the hope is that they will come here again and visit on their own,' Mr Leung said.
He said mainlanders tended to spend less the further they were from Guangdong, and that their ability to visit Hong Kong was largely determined by hotel rates.
The executive director of the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, Michael Li Hon-sing, said an influx of less-wealthy mainland tourists would not put downward pressure on room rates as the market would benefit from the opening of Disneyland and from convention business.
Mr Li said visitors from the other provinces would stay at least one or two nights because of the distances involved.
Mr Jia said the proposals to the council also included one to allow Hong Kong airlines more flights to large airports in Guangdong, Si-chuan, Yunnan , Guizhou , Guangxi , Jiangxi , Hunan , Fujian and Hainan .
Despite scepticism over the significance of the regional co-operation taking place, Mr Jia said Si-chuan had benefited from the management, thinking and technology Hong Kong companies had brought.
'Without these, even if we have the capital it is of no use,' he said.
