Restaurants in Hong Kong anticipate stronger business during the Labour Day golden holiday compared to Easter, but the trade remains in decline amid an exodus of Hong Kong holidaymakers, veteran caterer Simon Wong Ka-wo told The Standard on Sunday.
With Hong Kong's Labour Day holiday falling on a Thursday this year, he noted that many residents are encouraged to take Friday off, creating a five-day break that included Monday's Buddha's Birthday, also a public holiday, for travel outside the city.
Still, Wong, president of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades, expressed cautious optimism as the 840,000 incoming mainland tourists are expected to help compensate for the loss of local customers.
The Tourism Board's drone performance on Thursday evening may also help encourage Hongkongers to dine out and spend money locally, but the unstable weather in the coming week would dampen such plans.
He expected a 20 percent drop in business compared to the same period last year, but still a better performance than that during the Easter holiday, which saw 30 percent down from regular weekends.
Wong repeated his call for the expansion of a multi-entry visa scheme that allows Shenzhen residents to make unlimited trips to Hong Kong to cover more mainland cities to boost tourism.
This year, the mainland's Labour Day holiday runs for five consecutive days, from May 1 to May 5. The Immigration Department estimated that around 840,000 mainland travelers will enter the city via sea, land and air control points during the holiday.
The government said it will maintain close coordination with relevant organizations and the tourism sector to ensure effective crowd management, information dissemination, arrangements of public transportation and boundary control points.
(Jamie Liu)
