Hong Kong | Shenzhen restrictions lead to fewer tourists

A tourist uses binoculars to look at the view from Victoria Peak as commercial and residential buildings stand in the distance in Hong Kong

A senior official from the Hong Kong Tourism Board told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) yesterday that travel restrictions placed on mainlanders living in Shenzhen had negatively impacted the city’s visitor numbers. According to the official, the effect was “greater and longer” than authorities had  predicted.

The number of Shenzhen visitors with a one-visit- per-week permit declined almost 30 percent to 8.88 million people in 2016 when compared with the previous year.

This subsequently impacted the change in the number of total visitors to Hong Kong last year, which declined by 4.5 percent to 56.65 million. According to the SCMP, two-thirds of visitors to Hong Kong in 2016 were from Shenzhen.

The travel restrictions on Shenzhen residents were implemented by authorities in the mainland municipality with the aim of reducing illegal trade between the two cities. The revision meant that Shenzhen visitors with multiple-
entry permits would only be allowed to cross into Hong Kong once per week.

The chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Peter Lam, told the newspaper that “the visa issue is still affecting the overall visitor numbers. It is hard to quantify its impact on 2017.”

He also said that per capita visitor spending in Hong Kong declined by about 5 percent year-on-year to HKD6,600 in 2016.