New cross-border transport links bring big rise in mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong over Lunar New Year holiday but many returned home the same day
- Both the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge saw record numbers on Wednesday
- Hoteliers say room occupancy rates were no higher than usual despite gridlock at bridge crossing and crowds at attractions such as Ocean Park
An unprecedented number of travellers used Hong Kong’s new cross-border links on the second day of Lunar New Year though many of the visits were day trips.
The number of travellers using the recently opened high-speed rail link and cross-border bridge hit a record high on Wednesday, but the hotel industry said business remained flat during the Lunar New Year holiday.
More than 96,000 people took the express rail to enter or leave Hong Kong on the second day of Lunar New Year, surpassing the daily patronage forecast of 90,100 for the link during peak periods in 2018.
On the same day, over 139,800 passed through the local border crossing facility at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.
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Michael Li Hon-shing, executive director of the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, said more overnight visitors came to Hong Kong thanks to the new infrastructure, however the number was not in proportion with the overall growth.
“It wasn’t much of a surprise,” Li said. “It only helped attract a big crowd of people but not necessarily boosting business.”
Hotels were more than 90 per cent occupied from Wednesday to Friday, and rooms at three- or four-star hotels were around HK$1,400 to HK$1,500 a night, Li said, but the figures were similar to previous years.
“Due to the convenience of transport, many travellers would rather go back to their homes the same day,” he said. From Monday to Wednesday, more than 474,600 mainland visitors entered Hong Kong, up from over 341,000 for the same period last year, or an increase of 39 per cent.
The city’s famous theme park Ocean Park also implemented crowd control measures and halted ticket sales at its main gate as the number of guests approached maximum capacity.
The Travel Industry Council’s executive director Alice Chan Cheung Lok-yee noted the rise of tourists recorded on the first two days of the Lunar New Year holiday mainly stemmed from the influx of individual travellers, saying the figures as better than expected.
But activist Roy Tam Hoi-pong, a member of the NeoDemocrats party, said the high figures were actually bad news for Hong Kong residents.
“Hong Kong people used to have a break from mainland visitors for a few days during the Lunar New Year holiday … the number of individual travellers had already seriously affected the ability of residents to have a comfortable holiday,” he said.
He called on mainland authorities to further tighten the individual visit endorsements for residents in Shenzhen, a city north of the border from Hong Kong, saying they should replace the current system of one trip a week with one trip every six months.
