Hong Kong sector leaders back extended hours for malls, call for more consumption vouchers to convince shoppers night is young
- Government in talks with industry to extend hours at shopping centres to 11pm, but critics say more is needed, such as vouchers and late-night public transport
- Drive is part of bid to revive flagging nightlife post-pandemic, as consumer habits have changed
Hong Kong retail and property sector leaders have thrown their support behind extended operating hours for shopping centres, calling also for more consumption vouchers to be rolled out to invigorate the city’s flagging nightlife.
But the industry players on Wednesday also said more incentives were needed to encourage people to dine out and shop at night.
The calls came amid talks between authorities and malls to extend business hours to 11pm on weekends as part of a plan to revive a lacklustre night economy.
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Maureen Fung Sau-yim, executive director of Sun Hung Kai Properties, said her group would fully back the new measure with more incentives for tenants to stay open longer, such as parking rewards and shopping points for patrons.
“We heard some government officials proposing this idea. This is excellent news for the catering sector and we will fully support this measure with appropriate arrangements and incentives to encourage tenants to join us,” she said.
“We are still in discussion with our malls on how many can extend their operating hours. At present most of our malls operate from 10am to 10pm and we aim to organise more activities at night to attract patrons.”
Fung cited the example of APM in Kwun Tong, which runs until 2am daily and even overnight during some festivals such as Christmas or Mid-Autumn Festival.
He added that private consumption and the tourism industry would still be the main drivers of growth in the second half of the year as the government revised its gross domestic product growth forecast to between 4 and 5 per cent for 2023, a shift from the previous target of 3.5 to 5.5 per cent.
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Fung said more support from the government was needed if it really wanted to revive nightlife, in particular public transport services should be extended in tandem with mall operations.
“The government needs to provide some supporting measures for us to make this plan work. For example, the railway service in Shanghai runs overnight to support its night economy,” she said.
“Will public transport in Hong Kong extend operating hours and offer people more subsidies to attract them to go out at night?”
Fung added the government should also import more workers and speed up its approval process to help resolve the labour crunch in the industry as well as allowing restaurants to provide outdoor seating to attract patrons.
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Ray Chui Man-wai, president of the catering body Institute of Dining Art, echoed the sentiments, calling for authorities to introduce consumption vouchers at night to boost spending as it would cost restaurants more, about an extra HK$15,000 per day if they operated an hour longer.
“The move will push up the operating cost of restaurants … It will be meaningless if no one hangs out in shopping malls at night,” he said.
“Nowadays people start to disperse after 8pm so the government needs to roll out new incentives to spur night spending. We suggest consumption vouchers for spending after 8pm.”
Chui also urged malls to roll out more night activities such as festivals, shows and events to entice people into going out.
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Hospitality expert Dennis Wong Ka-wing, project manager of the Vocational Training Council, said malls operating an hour longer could help boost spending and lure shoppers as long as they organised more shows and performances.
“Mainlanders now go for the model of ‘one day, multi-destinations’. They tend to visit as many destinations as possible in one day from dawn till late night,” he said.
“Malls operating one hour longer will definitely help spice up the momentum and attract shoppers. But they need to run more shows and performances to bring more excitement.”
A spokeswoman for the Financial Secretary’s Office said officials were studying several proposals and would discuss with different sectors.
