Shops, restaurants and hotels looking to cash in on high-speed rail link

Most of the mainland visitors travelling to Hong Kong on high-speed trains in the first two years of the rail service's operation are likely to be making their first trip to the city, tourism trade observers say.

Given that first-time mainland travellers generally tend to spend more and stay longer in the city than the typical tourist or repeat visitors, shops, restaurants and hotels can expect a business boost as the mainland fulfils its high-speed rail link ambitions.

Mainlanders are already among the top spenders among visitors to Hong Kong, parting with an average of HK$5,676 each last year, compared with HK$5,439 overall for overnight visitors, HK$2,138 each for same-day visitors and HK$1,498 for all visitors, according to Hong Kong Tourism Board data.

But Hong Kong Retail Management Association chairwoman Caroline Mak Sui-king believes the real figure is higher at between HK$5,000 and HK$8,000 or much more.

The tourism boost could lead to a double-digit percentage increase in the number of mainland visitors arriving once high-speed trains connected less accessible regions of the country to the city, Michael Wu Siu-ieng, the chairman of the Hong Kong Travel Industry Council, said. Almost 16.9 million mainlanders visited Hong Kong last year.

The trains, which travel at more than 300km/h, run between Wuhan and Guangzhou and between Tianjin and Beijing.

The mainland plans to overhaul its railway system with high-speed lines by 2012. Hong Kong will link with the mainland network if the Legislative Council backs a controversial government plan to operate high-speed trains to Guangzhou by 2015 at a cost of about HK$67 billion.