Unrest takes toll on 'Golden Week' tourism
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Ongoing unrest has begun to take its toll on Hong Kong's busiest week for stores catering to mainland visitors.
Crowds assembled at Nathan Road and Argyle Street as well as around shopping arcades in Tsim Sha Tsui have shuttered businesses as tourists visiting Hong Kong during the National Day holidays found they are not getting what they paid for.
Several visitors already in the city said they planed to shorten their trips or leave early after finding major tourist hotspots under occupation.
Hong Kong Inbound Tour Operators Association chairman Ricky Tse Kam-ting expects this year’s figures to be half of the 920,000 mainlanders who came to in the first six days of last October.
Day trips by mainlanders in neighboring Shenzhen have been cancelled out of concern while tour operators said the number of tourists seeking to enter the city was down nearly a quarter.
Clueless tourists waiting on suspended trams in Wan Chai were left befuddled until warned off by passerbyers.
Retailers said pre holiday sales by early birders were already down more than a fifth Monday, complaining the ongoing unrest was starting to hit their bottom lines, likening the dearth in customers to the 2003 SARS epidemic.
Ocean Park is also bracing for fewer than expected visitors from the mainland, a key segment for the amusement park.
