Hong Kong should allow mainland Chinese travellers from more cities to visit on individual trips, industry figures say
- Alan Chan of Miramar Group says daily flights and trains operate between Hong Kong and 26 mainland Chinese cities not covered by Individual Visit Scheme
- Call to add cities to scheme for first time since 2007 echoed by tourism sector lawmaker Perry Yiu, who says Hong Kong can handle more overnight visitors
Alan Chan Chung-yee, the chief operations officer of the Miramar Group, which runs two hotels locally, on Monday noted that daily flights and train services operated between Hong Kong and 26 mainland cities yet they were not covered by an official scheme for individual visitors.
“They comprise 17 cities that can be reached via the high-speed rail link and nine other cities that have direct flights to Hong Kong,” he told a radio programme. “If we do not expand the coverage of the scheme, we are wasting these services.”
The Individual Visit Scheme, introduced in 2003, allows residents from 49 mainland cities to visit Hong Kong in an individual capacity instead of with tour groups.
Expansions to the scheme have been debated over the years, with past officials citing concerns over sufficient infrastructure and potential disturbances to Hongkongers’ daily lives because of an uptick in visitors. The scheme has not added any new cities since 2007.
“It has been 16 years since we last expanded the scheme, and the population of the cities that are currently covered only accounts for 30.1 per cent of the country’s overall population,” Chan said. “We have not tapped into the individual travel market yet.”
The 26 cities serviced by daily flights and trains would add an extra 10.6 per cent of the country’s population to the scheme, he said.