Sun Hung Kai’s hotel, shopping mall businesses take a drubbing as tourist numbers plunge amid Hong Kong protests
- Hong Kong’s biggest developer has seen occupancy rates of its hotels fall as low as 50 per cent amid social unrest, says chairman Raymond Kwok
- Its shopping centres are also struggling under the weight of a slump in footfall and spending exacerbated by the protests
Sun Hung Kai Properties, the largest developer by value in the world’s least affordable housing market, said its hotel and shopping centre businesses have been hit hard by the protests that are shaking Hong Kong to its core and deterring visitors.
Occupancy rates at the company’s hotels have plunged on average by 30 to 40 per cent, with some hotels finding themselves just half full, said Raymond Kwok, chairman and managing director of the company.
“Fewer customers came when a lot of Western countries issued travel warnings so the hotel industry has been affected quite a lot,” said Kwok.
He was commenting on Thursday evening after revealing that the company’s underlying profit jumped 6.6 per cent to HK$32.39 billion (US$4.14 billion) in the year to June 30. The protests that marked the start of Hong Kong’s unprecedented political crisis started on June 9, so would have had a negligible impact on the figure.
Hong Kong’s tourism industry has suffered its worst downturn in more than a decade, with arrivals plunging almost 40 per cent in August from a year earlier.