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Cover Story
A luncheon held immediately after the AGM, was well attended by about 200
prominent guests from member companies, the retail industry and the business
community. This year, the Association is honoured to have invited Miss Cathy
Chu, JP, Commissioner for Tourism as the distinguished speaker for the luncheon,
to share with us her valuable insights on the Government's vision in developing
Hong Kong's tourism policies and how to synergize with retail industry for more
business opportunities.
周年大會後，協會隨即舉行午餐研討會，並獲接近
二百位來自會員公司的代表以及商界領袖出席，聚
首一堂。
協會今年很榮幸邀請了旅遊事務專員朱曼鈴女士
, JP
擔任主講嘉賓，向我們分享政府未來的旅遊發展方
向，相關政策對零售業帶來甚麼啟示及發展商機。
Thomson (Cheng), friends of HKRMA, ladies and gentlemen,
I am very honoured to be invited here to speak to you at the 33
rd
Annual General Meeting of the Association today.
Tourism and retail industries going in sync with
each other
Tourism is an industry known for its close linkage with other
sectors in the economy, including retail, hotel, catering, transport,
and so on. In particular, tourism and retail industries share many
ups and downs together, although tourist spending on shopping
only accounts for about one third of the retail sales. For example,
in the 10-year period from 2006 to 2015 during which our
tourist number more than doubled, the retail sales also more
than doubled; when the tourism industry faced a drag with
visitor arrivals dropped by 4% since 2015, the retail sales value
has also seen a drop of 6%. So, I guess you will be interested to
know where our tourism industry currently stands and how we
are going to take it forward.
Current tourism landscape
Tourism industry is very sensitive to changes in the external
environment. Last year, worsening global economy has seen
an immediate effect on our tourism performance. Significant
depreciation of currencies of other tourism destinations, coupled
with their relaxation of visa policies, has dramatically increased
competition for Hong Kong in attracting tourists. Anti-corruption
efforts in the Mainland have also dragged down the number of
Mainland visitors, in particular those who come for luxury goods.
And the situation is not helped by incidents including various
anti-Mainlanders protests as well as the riot in Mongkok early
this year, which sent very unhelpful signal to our potential visitors
from the Mainland.
As a result, apart from a decrease in the number of visitors,
the per capita spending of our overnight visitors in 2015 has
dropped by 9.1%. No doubt our tourism industry has entered
into a period of consolidation. Some even dubbed that the
tourism industry is experiencing a "chilly winter".
However, let me show you some figures which can help put
things in proper perspective. While our visitor arrivals in 2015
recorded a year-on-year decline of 2.5%, our number of visitors
still stood at a high level of over 59 million, which is still two
times of our visitor arrivals six years before (2009). In fact, not
too long ago, we faced constant questions about our capacity in
receiving the large amount of inbound tourists and the associated
impacts on people's livelihood. There had been repeated calls for
measures to contain the number of visitors.
Prices behind rapid growth
As I mentioned at the start, we have had some good years with
visitor arrivals more than doubled to about 60 million from 2006
to 2015. This is largely attributable to the introduction of the
Mainland's Individual Visit Scheme in 2003 and its subsequent
expansion, with a coverage of a total of 49 Mainland cities by
now. In particular, the introduction of multiple-entry permits
for Shenzhen residents in 2009 has resulted in a spectacular
growth in Shenzhen visitors to Hong Kong. Now over 70% of
our visitors are from the Mainland. The rapid and huge increase
has also brought along its prices to the society. Of this increase
in visitors, it is worth to note that about 35% are those holding
multiple entry or "one week one trip" permits from Shenzhen,
Below is the speech by Miss Cathy Chu, JP, Commissioner for Tourism (English only):
以下是旅遊事務專員朱曼鈴女士
, JP
的講詞：
Tourism Industry – Seizing Opportunities Amidst Adversity
10
