Alan Lam says the increase in visitors could just be a one-off. Photo: RTHK
The Travel Agent Owners Association is playing down the significance of a surprise surge in the number of mainlanders who came to the territory on the first day of the on-going golden week holiday.
Immigration Department data showed more than 200,000 visitors arrived from the mainland on Saturday – a 14 percent increase compared with the first day of last year’s national holiday.
But the association's chairman, Alan Lam, said it could just be a one-off increase and is nothing to get excited about. He said mainlanders are now less interested in coming to Hong Kong because of the behaviour of locals who have protested against visitors from across the border.
Meanwhile, the convenor of a concern group on population policy, Roy Tam, says Hong Kong should reduce its reliance on mainland tourists.
Tam said almost eight out of ten visitors are from the mainland, up from about six in ten a decade ago. He said Hong Kong should welcome visitors from all over the world to make up for a recent fall in the number of mainland visitors.
http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1257813-20160502.htm
