Shoppers hit Hong Kong early before tour prices rise
Mainlanders arrive in city well before start of golden week, with regulations set to double the cost of organised visits from tomorrow
Golden week has come early for favoured haunts of mainland shoppers as some of the more price-conscious visitors have been taking to their tour buses to get in before a jump in prices for organised trips to Hong Kong.
The higher prices for Hong Kong tours, to take effect tomorrow, flow on from a regulation on the mainland forbidding tour agencies from collecting commissions from shopping tours.
Timed to coincide with the National Day holiday, the ban - imposed by the China National Tourism Administration - comes in response to a growing number of complaints from mainlanders taking tours to the city.
The measure applies to all mainland outbound tours. For Hong Kong and Macau, the prices of some tours will triple. For example, today is the last day Wing On will offer a three-day tour of Hong Kong from Hangzhou for 1,399 yuan (HK$1,770). The same trip will cost 4,020 yuan after that. China Comfort Travel, which offers a one-day tour of Hong Kong from Shenzhen for 38 yuan, said it would halt that promotion from next month.
The price rises have given a nudge to more than a few mainland shoppers, it seems, to seize on the last two weeks of September and beat the tour group price rises.
At DFS Galleria in Tsim Sha Tsui East, which caters almost exclusively to mainland tour groups brought in by buses, a saleswoman at the Ralph Lauren store said the week leading up to the Mid-Autumn Festival was abnormally busy and last week was "overwhelming".