THE Government has come under mounting pressure to change its hotel development land-use policy with another consultancy report calling for steps to make it more financially viable.
The Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners paper, to be released soon, comes at a time when there are fears that a shortage of hotel rooms could harm the tourism industry.
The shortage was being exacerbated because tourist numbers were steadily increasing but hotel room stock was decreasing because property owners were redeveloping existing hotels into offices.
The tourism industry is the second largest foreign exchange earner in Hong Kong, bringing in $64.3 billion last year.
The federation's paper, written by PKF Consulting, says Hong Kong would need a net gain of at least 14,000 new hotel rooms in the next 10 years.
PKF said zoning regulations, plot-ratio rules and the labour importation scheme held the key to continued hotel development.
The consultants suggest the Government quickly increases the plot ratio for hotel development to the same allowed for offices and designate sites specifically for hotels.