Hong Kong authorities are less optimistic in the region's tourism prospects for the upcoming holidays in May, after seeing a drop in the number of tourist groups from the Chinese mainland.
According to Yu Li-hua, chief of the Hong Kong Professional Tourist Guides General Union, there were only 3,729 tour groups to Hong Kong in January 2016 compared with 11,575 in January 2015, a drop of 59 percent, Hong Kong-based newspaper Wen Wei Po reported Tuesday.
Yu said travel agencies would usually have begun to ask for extra beds from hotels in April, but not this year since conditions are not as competitive, the newspaper added.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board has implemented new measures to attract tourists from the mainland, such as issuing coupons in the Alipay app, a popular online payment channel in China.
Several shops in Harbour City, the largest and most diverse shopping mall in Hong Kong, will also offer discounts during the upcoming holidays, an employee told the Global Times.
Several mainland travel agencies reached by the Global Times admitted a slight decrease in tourists, but stressed the total number will remain large during the upcoming holidays.
"Our tour groups during the May Day holidays will still include Mong Kok, and shopping in Hong Kong will not be affected by what happened last year," an employee from Guangzhou-based agency Fu Journey, told the Global Times, referring to the Mong Kok riots in February and Occupy protests.
Changes in the tourism circumstance contributed to a slide in Hong Kong tourism in 2015, according to a tourism report issued on Monday by the National Academy of Economic Strategy and Tourism Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), china.com.cn reported.
A local activist group plans to launch another protest for parallel traders - those who buy goods in Hong Kong and sell them at a profit on the mainland - in early May, the Singaporean newspaper Lianhe Zaobao reported Sunday.
A similar protest in Hong Kong last year has damaged the city's image, the CASS report said.
