‘Challenging year’: Lantau Island’s Ngong Ping cable car visitor numbers fall 11pc in 2015
Operator says main reason for decline was fewer operating days
Lantau Island cable car operator Ngong Ping 360 saw an 11 per cent drop in visitors last year because there were fewer operating days, according to its management.
The total number of visitors fell from 1.83 million in 2014 to 1.62 million last year.
Half of its visitors in 2015 came from Western and other Asian countries while about 30 per cent came from mainland China and Macau. The rest were Hong Kong residents.
READ MORE: Only way is up – Ngong Ping round-trip cable car ticket price to rise by as much as 12pc
Stella Kwan Mun-yee, managing director of Ngong Ping 360, said: “2015 was a challenging year ... when we look at visitor numbers, we look at two things: maintenance days ... and weather conditions. In 2015, the average number of guests was 5,100 per day, a 3.6 per cent decline from 2014.”
There were more than 300 operating days last year, with close to 40 maintenance days.
Despite the overall decline in visitors, Kwan said the company saw a strong growth in tourist numbers from Southeast Asia in the last quarter of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014 thanks to rigorous overseas promotion.
This Lunar New Year, the cable car operator also recorded a 1.5 per cent increase in visitors compared to the same time last year.
READ MORE: Residents express mixed views over Lantau plans
Opened in 2006, Ngong Ping 360 is a subsidiary of the MTR Corporation.
The 5.7km cable car journey takes about 25 minutes and connects Tung Chung with Ngong Ping, where the famed Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery are popular attractions.
On the Lantau Island development plans proposed by the government-appointed advisory committee to extend the cable car route from Ngong Ping to the fishing village of Tai O, Kwan said she understood the government was currently conducting feasibility studies but added she had “very little” information about the details at the moment.
While agreeing with the overall policy direction of balancing development and conservation, Kwan reiterated that the government must carefully consider the receiving capacity of Tai O as well as the views of local residents.
