In order to boost the night-time economy, the Hong Kong government held a launch ceremony for the “Hong Kong Night Fun” last Thursday (14th) and announced a series of activities lasting several months, including extending the business hours of shopping malls and restaurants. However, some special programs were accused of being old-fashioned. A new bottle of wine, such as the National Day Fireworks Display and New Year’s Float Parade, etc. are only resumed; and the source of tourists they attract is unclear. They want Hong Kong people to stay in Hong Kong for consumption, but also want to attract overseas tourists, including mainland China. There may be “two ends”. “arrival” phenomenon.
One day after the incident, the Shenzhen Municipal Government, which is adjacent to Hong Kong, issued the “Several Measures of Shenzhen Municipality on Promoting Consumption”. Among the 21 measures to promote consumption, one chapter and three are aimed at facilitating the consumption of Hong Kong people, including the issuance of exclusive consumption coupons to tourists from Hong Kong and Macao. Create more than ten demonstration districts for tourism consumption services for Hong Kong people, improve cross-border payments, enhance the scope of use of cross-border e-wallets such as Hong Kong’s “Octopus” in Shenzhen, and encourage merchants to launch menu pages and operation guides that are convenient for Hong Kong and Macao tourists to read and use.
What our reporters saw this past weekend was that although many shopping malls held special events to attract customers, not many shops extended their business hours. In fact, in shopping malls around Causeway Bay, the flow of people has gradually thinned out after 7 pm, and it seems that the number of customers has decreased earlier than in the evening on working days. A listener surnamed Cai called the online program this morning and said that Shenzhen’s low cost of consumption is a major advantage. For example, his family of more than ten people spent a day eating and drinking for only more than 2,000 yuan, and it might cost twice as much in Hong Kong. Nope either. However, some listeners said that it would take several hours to travel north to Shenzhen, which was not calculated in terms of time.
The Shenzhen strategy is more targeted and cheaper, with 541,000 Hong Kong residents heading north.
Data from the Hong Kong Immigration Department may explain the sparse flow of people in shopping malls, as more Hong Kong people are leaving Hong Kong and heading north. According to statistics from the Immigration Department, our station found that excluding sea and air departures, which may have gone to other places in China or foreign countries, the number of Hong Kong residents who left the country by land during the past weekend and Sunday was nearly 541,000, which is higher than the previous week. On weekends and Sundays (i.e., the 9th and 10th of this month), there were nearly 142,000 more departures from Hong Kong, an increase of 36%; while the number of departures from Hong Kong was 12,000 more than the number of arrivals, it cannot be ruled out that some people were in Shenzhen. Spend the night.
On the contrary, there were 179,000 mainland Chinese tourists entering Hong Kong through various land ports in the past two days, more than 53,000 more than the weekends and Sundays of the previous week, an increase of 42%. However, the total number of arrivals and departures of tourists from mainland China in the two days only differed by 500 to 600 in the two weeks. It is estimated that mainland tourists do not spend much “overnight” in Hong Kong.
Comparing the two sets of figures, although the increase in the number of mainland tourists entering Hong Kong within two weeks is about 6 percentage points higher than the increase in Hong Kong people leaving the country and going north, the actual increase in the number of Hong Kong people going north is 2.7 times the actual increase in the number of mainland tourists entering Hong Kong, which means Hong Kong people are attracted to Shenzhen far more than mainland tourists are attracted to Hong Kong.
Analyst: Retail sales this year are expected to recover 95% of pre-epidemic levels
In response to media questions after visiting the community at noon yesterday (17th), Hong Kong Chief Executive Lee Ka-chiu admitted that it is normal for Hong Kong people to resume traveling and going out after the epidemic, and they must be faced pragmatically. Therefore, Hong Kong’s attractiveness must be strengthened; and the epidemic must be changed. In the past three years, Hong Kong people have to work hard to reduce their living habits of going out. It cannot be done overnight. The results will take time to show. He emphasized that Hong Kong is part of the Greater Bay Area, and some things need to be innovated and strengthened to match the overall future development environment, hoping for mutual benefit and win-win results in the integration of the Greater Bay Area.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po wrote in his blog yesterday morning that the external economic environment is not as good as it should be and the local market faces many challenges. It is necessary to adopt a “combination punch” approach in different areas and levels, taking advantage of the characteristics of various seasons. and atmosphere, release potential demand, and bring more new catalysts and power to the market. Later projects to boost the night economy will include more diversified and innovative options, and we hope that the public will participate.
Ng Zhuo-yin, senior economist at Natixis Asia Pacific, suggested that the Hong Kong government should create irreplaceable advantages or characteristic industry development for Hong Kong, such as South Korea’s pop music culture. Inferring from current data, Hong Kong’s retail sales this year may only return to 2019. The level before the epidemic was 95%.
2023-09-18 08:26:00
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