Inflow of visitors from mainland lifts fortunes for operators of amusement sites
Some theme parks in Hong Kong received more visitors from the Chinese mainland during the Labor Day holiday, even as the total number of mainland tourists to Hong Kong dropped.
"Thanks to the mainland visitors, Ocean Park still had a 13 percent rise in visitors during the golden week in May," said Tom Mehrmann, chief executive of Ocean Park Corp.
Mehrmann said theme parks in Hong Kong did not experience any adverse effect from the recent decline in mainland visitors.
However, competitor Hong Kong Disneyland Park declined to comment on visitor numbers.
The fast increase of mainland visitors to Hong Kong in the past 10 years has brought a huge number of tourists to the city's theme parks.
"The (theme park) market is growing and it is 100 percent related to mainland visitors' growth," said Mehrmann.
To attract more mainland travelers, Ocean Park launched several special discounts for cardholders of Bank of China Ltd and passengers of Air China Ltd this summer.
However, the theme parks in Hong Kong face longer-term challenges, including the expansion of the park sector in the mainland and the decline in mainland visitors to Hong Kong.
"I am waiting for the opening of Disneyland in Shanghai," said Zhang Man, 29, who lives in Shanghai and plans to take her 2-year-old daughter to the local Disneyland in the next year.
Zhang said her daughter is too little to fly to Hong Kong and the park in Shanghai is her best choice.
Meanwhile, the number of mainland travelers to Hong Kong dropped in May for the first time since 2003, when the special admini strative region opened independent tours to mainland residents.
During the three-day holiday in May, 388,070 mainland travelers visited Hong Kong, down from 394,476 the previous year, according to the Immigration Department of Hong Kong.
The retail industry has been heavily affected by the visitor decline in recent months.
The Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong said retail sales in April fell 9.8 percent year-on-year to about HK$38.8 billion ($5 billion), the largest decline in the past five years.
The decline was mainly due to a plunge in the sales of jewelry, watches and clocks and valuable gifts, the department said in its statement.
The impact of a decline in mainland visitors will be even more obvious if the local government cuts the quota for solo travelers by 20 percent, some experts said, though this move is still under discussion in the government.
"It is necessary for the local government to adjust the tourism situation, since the fast-growing tourism sector has already caused social conflicts in Hong Kong, but it should be on a structural level, rather than quantity," said Jiang Yiyi, director of the China Tourism Academy's international tourism development division.
Jiang said Hong Kong still has the capacity for more travelers, because its arrivals are much fewer than many other big cities in the world, even Beijing.
