Restaurants hankering for holiday vouchers after Easter wake-up call

Restaurants are calling on the government to launch holiday consumption vouchers after suffering a significant drop in business during Easter, with the latest figures showing some 2.3 million residents leaving the city over the long weekend.

Speaking on radio yesterday, Institute of Dining Professionals honorary president Kelvin Yau Kam-wing said daytime business of restaurants plunged by as much as 30 percent.

Calling it a huge wake-up call, Yau said many restaurants only had two to three tables of patrons during the Easter holiday, which was supposed to be a boom time for the industry.

He added that Hongkongers with high spending power left the city while those who stayed behind tended to spend less.

Although restaurants have already "tried every trick in the book" by providing discounts, people's spending patterns have changed, Yau said.

Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades president Simon Wong Ka-wo said local restaurants should enhance their customer service.

"Even Michelin-starred restaurants should improve their service attitude so that we can provide high-quality food and service," Wong said. "The only way out for us is for the central government to include more cities in the individual visit scheme."

Around 2.27 million Hongkongers left the city between Thursday and Monday, while only some 498,000 tourists visited.

Despite the rise in inbound travelers, local travel agencies have struggled amid illegal Hong Kong tours organized by nonlocal agencies, said Federation of Hong Kong Trade Unions in Tourism chairwoman Sara Leung Fong-yuen.

And most inbound travelers came through the individual visit scheme, Leong added.

She said the number of foreign visitors has continued to drop post-pandemic and most inbound travelers are from the mainland, adding that the tourism sector will observe the number of mainland tourists in the upcoming Labour Day "golden week" next month.

Roundtable lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun said border checkpoints were crowded while the local market was quiet.

Tien, who is also the founding chairman of a clothing retail chain, said business plummeted to a level that was even worse than during the pandemic.

He appealed to the central government and Hong Kong authorities to discuss allowing multiple-entry endorsement for mainlanders and including more cities in the visit scheme.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com