Without a long-term land bank, Hong Kong faces a development crisis
Regina Ip calls for a more aggressive government policy to ensure there is enough land for long-term needs, as a shortage will be the biggest obstacle to the city's development
Almost a year after Hong Kong's traumatic Occupy Central began, large-scale mass mobilisation to commemorate the anniversary seems unlikely. In the wider community, the feverish debates on constitutional development are being quietly overtaken by growing anxiety about Hong Kong's economic future.
In recent months, the downturn in mainland tourism and retail, as exemplified by the rising numbers of vacant shop premises, the pessimism of luxury retailers and the decline in commercial rentals, has sparked mounting concerns about Hong Kong's future as a tourism hub. Some retailers have remarked that the impending slump will be worse than that triggered by the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic of 2003.
The downtrend seems structural, and the government clueless in taking action to reverse it. Signs of a decline in residential property sales in the secondary market and falling rentals, following the financial turmoil in recent weeks, provide further telltale signs of gloom.
There is a lack of overall planning and coordination of Hong Kong's land requirements, and a lack of an innovative and effective action plan to remedy the shortage
What can the tourism industry do to regain lost ground? With Beijing officials speaking against reopening the floodgate to let in more mainland tourists, a repeat of the shot in the arm provided by mass mainland tourism in 2003 is unlikely to take place. Mass mainland tourism has indeed proved to be too much of a good thing, as the captive market has taken away Hong Kong's incentives to diversify and raise the bar in the standard of service, overseas publicity and promotion and, above all, in reinvestment in truly world-class tourism attractions.
Hong Kong compares poorly with rival cities in making large-scale investments to build forward-looking, state-of-the-art tourist attractions. Whereas Singapore had invested heavily in building its awe-inspiring Gardens by the Bay, and Guangdong's Chimelong Group has done likewise in building its massive Ocean Kingdom theme park and hotels in Hengqin , Hong Kong lacks innovative, large-scale tourism investments. With the opening next year of Shanghai's Disneyland theme park - three times the size of Disney's Hong Kong branch - our local theme parks stand to lose more business.
The lack of land for building new, major tourism attractions is the biggest hurdle. The problem is twofold: there is a general acute shortage of land for development in the medium and long term. Secondly, there is a lack of overall planning and coordination of Hong Kong's land requirements, and a lack of an innovative and effective action plan to remedy the shortage.