Few are aware of the old link between the Federation of Students and a travel agency, but the sale of that business - which once recorded HK$100 million annual turnover - has helped support the study body to this day.
The Hong Kong Student Travel Bureau, the forerunner of Hong Kong Student Travel Limited, was set up by federation leaders in 1977. "Student tourism was an emerging business in the 1970s. The Hong Kong Tourist Association - now the Tourism Board - wanted to develop this sector and that's how the federation's travel branch was founded," recalls Ma Fung-kwok, president of the students' federation in the '70s and now a lawmaker.
According to the Companies Registry, the Student Travel Bureau was set up by five of the federation's student leaders, a teacher and a manager.
The late pro-Beijing lawyer Dorothy Liu Yiu-chu was the solicitor that signed off their documentation, which allocated 15 per cent of the bureau's net profits to help fund the federation.
"The travel bureau was given a desk in the association's office in Jardine House. Train passes and bus passes for Europe were a real hit," Ma said. The agency also issued student identity cards, which helped secure discounts abroad, including cheap fares and discounted entrance fees at museums. In addition it set up a counselling service for Hongkongers studying overseas.
By 1990, the travel bureau had an annual turnover of HK$100 million, said Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, a former federation member who was director of the travel bureau in 1991 and 1992. "But then the executives wanted to buy out the travel business so that it would no longer have to share its profits with the students. That's why it was sold," Tsoi said.