12,000 mainland shoppers swamp Tuen Mun in three hours after free bus ride offer
Residents complain about disruption as stores offer free bus tickets to cross-border customers
An estimated 12,000 visitors from the mainland swept into Tuen Mun within three hours on Sunday, taking advantage of free bus rides offered by three big shopping centres.
The complimentary Citybus tickets to the Shenzhen Bay checkpoint were first made available around two years ago to non-locals making purchases of between HK$500 and HK$1,500 at tmtplaza, V City and K-Point. The fare is normally HK$11.
As the number of visitors from across the border has grown in the last six months, Tuen Mun residents have experienced disruption to their daily lives, Roy Tam Hoi-pong, convenor of pressure body the Population Policy Concern Group, said.
The complaints echo rows in other New Territories towns such as Sheung Shui, which have seen a boom in mainland visitors.
Residents had been enduring bus queues as long as 400 metres during weekends as non-locals swamped bus stops after their shopping, Tam said.
"The shopping centres are making profits at the expense of the interests of Tuen Mun residents," he said, demanding that the malls stop offering the free fares to mainland shoppers.
According to the group's observations, between 2pm and 5pm on Sunday about 100 buses on four routes that connected Tuen Mun with the border arrived at the town's bus terminal.