Opinion

Before tourism resumes, heal old wounds between Hongkongers and mainland visitors

Before the pandemic, the millions of mainland visitors who flocked to Hong Kong each year were a source of resentment among some residents

As the city prepares to welcome tourists once again, the government must do more to balance visitor experience with local quality of life

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Tourists from mainland China visit Tung Chung for shopping in 2019. Photo: Felix Wong

April Zhang is the founder of MSL Master and the author of the Mandarin Express textbook series and the Chinese Reading and Writing textbook series.

Published: 8:30am, 12 Oct 2022

My first visit to Hong Kong was in 2000. On my way back to the mainland from Singapore, I stopped over for a few days and took in some tourist spots.

Navigating the city using only Mandarin, I saw the nighttime skyline from the Peak, visited the Madame Tussauds museum, tried dim sum, rode on the Star Ferry, and bought a pair of earrings at a street market. The city was vibrant, offering rich local experiences.

I reminisce now about the “good old times” because that’s what they became. In the years to come, visitors from the mainland and local Hongkongers would trade insults with each other. Both became victims of the unchecked growth of the tourism industry, which was like a cancer cell that was only killed by the outbreak of Covid-19.

Although the pandemic has dealt a particularly heavy blow to tourism in Hong Kong, it also offers a moment of respite in which the government can address the decade-long tension between mainland visitors and local residents.

Between 2002 and 2018, the number of mainland visitors to Hong Kong grew from 6.8 million to 51 million, dropping only slightly to 43.8 million in 2019 due to the anti-government protests. To put these numbers into perspective, New Zealand received a total of 3.8 million visitors in 2019, while the UK saw 40.9 million.

However, only a small portion of these visitors to Hong Kong were genuine tourists. The rest were mothers seeking right of abode for their children, shoppers looking to buy trusted foods, and parallel traders, who were basically unlicensed businesspeople.