Divided views on direct flights for mainland visitors
Representatives of the retail and hotel industries on Monday praised the move to boost Hong Kong's tourism sector by adding eight mainland cities to the individual visit scheme, but views were divided on whether direct flights from those cities were necessary. From May 27, travellers from Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, Hohhot of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Harbin in Heilongjiang, Lhasa in Tibet, Lanzhou in Gansu, Xining in Qinghai, Yinchuan in Ningxia, and Urumqi in Xinjiang will be able to visit Hong Kong on an individual basis, instead of on tour groups. Currently, there are direct flights from just four cities - Taiyuan, Lanzhou, Yinchuan, and Urumqi, with airlines planning to add Harbin next month. Alan Chan from the Miramar Group, which owns two hotels in the city, said travellers from further afield tend to spend more money, adding that tourists from the eight cities would be a big boost to the tourism sector here. "Visitors from those eight places will be the most wealthy people there...there are rich people in every city. For example, Shanxi doesn't have a very strong economy but there are bosses who own coal businesses there," the group's chief operations officer told an RTHK programme. He said with a new road which links Shenzhen airport and Shenzhen Bay opening next month, it would be convenient for mainland travellers to come to the SAR even if there are no direct flights. But Liberal Party legislator Peter Shiu, who represents the retail sector, said businesses here would get a greater boost if there are direct flights from all eight cities. "If tourists fly to Hong Kong directly, they would spend the night here during their trip. But if they fly to Shenzhen first and then come to Hong Kong, will they spend some time in Shenzhen before visiting us, or come to Hong Kong during the day and spend the night in Shenzhen?" he said. "We have to think about this because usually tourists who stay the night here spend more money than those who don't."