Hotels, restaurants mostly empty despite price cuts
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), now suffering from violent protests and unrest, is losing favor with an increasing number of tourists from the Chinese mainland, surveys of travel services showed.
Mainlanders' trips to Hong Kong are expected to fall 30 percent this Golden Week, and lower prices offered by restaurants, hotels and retailers in Hong Kong won't win back travelers' favor unless radical protesters stop disrupting normal social functions, according to insiders.
Hong Kong, used to be a popular travel destination, does not show up on any top destination lists for the holiday this year as compiled by major travel agencies including CYTS Tours, Ctrip, Mafengwo and Lvmama.
In contrast to Hong Kong's bleak outlook, the booking data shows that Chinese mainland travelers' enthusiasm is continuing to grow overall. It's forecast that mainland travelers will make more than 800 million trips during the holiday, up from 726 million a year earlier, according to Ctrip.
Domestic travel plans have significantly increased for the National Day holiday, which marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Japan is the most popular overseas destination for the holiday, CYTS Tours' data showed.
In Lvmama's popular travel destination list for the May Day holiday, Hong Kong ranked higher than Japan, but violent incidents since June at the airport and riots in other public locations have heavily damaged its international reputation as a peaceful, rational and hospitable city.
During last Golden Week, Hong Kong welcomed 1.5 million mainland travelers, up 20 percent year-on-year, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau revealed that visitor numbers fell by about one-third in the first 10 days of August compared with the previous year.
Mainland travelers' visits to Hong Kong since August have dropped at least 30 percent compared with the same period of the previous year, Xu Xiaolei, a manager of marketing at China's CYTS Tours Holding Co, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
China's CCTV News said on Sina Weibo on September 9 that three months of unrest had made travelers to Hong Kong fall by 40 percent year-on-year in August. The post bore a hashtag of "Hong Kong Disneyland turning to no man's land."
"About 90 percent of Hong Kong's hotel rooms are now empty. Travel industry insiders forecast that visitors to Hong Kong during the golden week are set to fall 70 percent year-on-year," read the post.
The ongoing unrest in Hong Kong has dealt the heaviest blow to the local tourism industry since the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998.
Related market players are facing a freezing winter. Hong Kong's August Purchasing Managers' Index contracted to 40.8 from 43.8 in July.
Industry insiders are wary about Hong Kong.
"The consensus of 'stop the unrest and pursue prosperity' is getting stronger in Hong Kong. We hope radical protesters will stop the unrest soon and let the industry recover before the Spring Festival holiday," Xu said.
