Numbers travelling to the continent had already fallen after the Paris attacks
NIKKI SUN AND STUART LAU
NIKKI.SUN@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Wednesday, 23 March, 2016, 5:56pm
Tourists look for directions as police patrol near the European Commission after the explosion at Maelbeek Metro station. Photo: EPA
Hong Kong travel agents feared on Wednesday that the deadly bombing attack in Brussels the day before would further dampen Hongkongers’ appetite for European travel.
The number of tours to Europe had already almost halved since the Paris attacks last November.
“It definitely will affect future European tours,” said Steve Huen Kwok-chuen, executive director of local travel agency EGL Tours, adding Brussels usually occupies one day of their tours’ itinerary.
He said since the Paris attacks, the number of tours to Europe had dropped 40 per cent, to around 20 per month.
“We’d just started to see a recovery recently,” Huen said, but he expected the latest atrocity – orchestrated bombings which killed at least 31 at Brussels transport hubs and was claimed by Islamic State – to reverse that.
“We can do nothing about it. We have to accept this,” he said.
Huen added that his company had one tour in Brussels when the incident happened, but that the tourists were safe as they were away from the attack sites.
He said the travel agency will not cancel the tours passing through Belgium next month and no customers has requested that, as the Hong Kong government only issued a yellow outbound travel alert, which means “signs of threat.”
Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor signs a book of condolence at the Belgian consulate in Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee
But another travel agency, Hong Thai, told the Postone of its tours in Belgium this week had changed course because of the attacks. Instead of visiting both Brussels and Bruges, the tour only spent time in the latter.
A company spokeswoman said three tours of about 100 people will set off to Europe during the Easter holidays, and it hadn’t received any requests to quit tours.
But on whether the visitors will spend time in Belgium, the spokeswoman said: “We will decide based on the situation at the time.”
Joseph Tung Yiu-chung, executive director at the Travel Industry Council, said around 17 tours had signed up for trips to western Europe from Hong Kong during the Easter holidays – a sharp decline from more than 30 last year.
“The negative news from Europe has had a very negative impact on local people’s travel decisions,” he said, adding that the demand for western European tours had slumped since last November.
Belgium’s Consul General Michele Deneffe also signs the book of condolence. Photo: Dickson Lee
Winne Ko, a Hongkonger who has lived in and around Brussels since 2012, used to live in Molenbeek, the town thrust into the international spotlight since the Paris attacks. Most of the key suspects lived there.
“I lived just a few blocks away from where Salah Abdeslam [a suspect in the Paris attacks] was captured, but I never felt unsafe,” said Ko, who moved from Brussels in 2013 but still commutes there for work every day. “I didn’t imagine terrorism could be so proximate.”
Ko, a research consultant for an NGO on cancer prevention, said the city was not so dangerous that she would immediately leave. “But I will definitely be more vigilant,” she said.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1929448/brussels-bomb-attack-another-blow-demand-european-travel
