I appreciate the Hong Kong Tourist Association's (HKTA) reply (South China Morning Post, February 10), to my letter to these columns on January 29. I do not dispute that there are HKTA counters in the transit and buffer halls of the terminals of the airport. However, in my letter, I was referring to the situation in the arrivals hall and at the Airport Express Terminal on Hong Kong Island. There is nothing at the Hong Kong terminal except a single map of nearby buildings in an obscure location. The airport arrivals hall information desks are not HKTA desks and of course there is a huge difference - the latter should obviously be highly visible and fully stocked with tourism literature. The arrivals desks are not. The Airport Express public address announcements are often difficult to understand, and the train ambassadors are 'multilingual' only in that they know Cantonese and a little Mandarin and English. There is no tourism literature on the trains. The visitors concerned were Italian, an articulate, alert, elegant, middle-aged couple, who were lost. The HKTA must ask itself why they failed to find any HKTA literature between the airport airside and the Hong Kong Airport express terminal and why the policemen in the vicinity were unable to help them. Some suggestions for the HKTA: Why not re-think the colour and location of the airside HKTA stands? The present dark green stands in the customs hall, for example, are unfortunately easily overlooked, located as they are in the shadows and away from the main circulation areas. The best location is taken up by Duty Free - that really is hard to miss. Why not provide bright white plastic bags with tourism information, at strategic locations throughout the airport, as was done at Kai Tak? Arrivals could quickly take one then peruse the contents at their leisure. Why not get the Airport Express train ambassadors to prominently hold out a few such packages as they move along the trains? And why not provide stands of tourist maps and other literature at both Airport Express terminals and on the trains and airport buses? M.R. LEUNG Pokfulam
