First day of mini-Golden Week sees fewer mainland Chinese tour groups than expected coming to Hong Kong
- About 150 mainland Chinese groups had registered with agents in the city on Wednesday
- Tour industry had expected daily average of 230-250
The number of mainland Chinese tour groups entering Hong Kong at the start of a four-day national holiday was lower than expected – by as much as 40 per cent – after the tour trade overestimated demand.
Even Tung Chung, next to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, remained mostly quiet, with only small groups of individual travellers passing by for shopping and leisure, in contrast to the overwhelming traffic a few months ago.
But a local concern group warned the unexpected serenity there only meant travellers had been diverted to the city centre and that other areas, such as Kowloon City, could be overcrowded.
The Travel Industry Council on Wednesday said agents had registered about 150 mainland Chinese inbound tour groups on the first day of the mini-Golden Week – a four-day break in mainland China that began on Labour Day. The number was much lower than its earlier estimate of 230 to 250 a day on average.
“The original numbers were estimates collected from the trade. They have obviously overestimated the market demand for group tours,” council executive director Alice Chan Cheung Lok-yee said.