Hong Kong's tourism industry, as well as genuine mainland tourists, will not be adversely affected by the mainland's latest policy to allow Shenzhen residents to visit the city only once a week, according to lawmaker Yiu Si-wing, who represents the tourism constituency.

He told China Daily that while the new measure, which came into effect on Monday, may appease residents in districts swamped by parallel-trading activities in the past, it will not eradicate such activities once and for all.

The syndicates involved, Yiu argued, can still resort to recruiting more Hong Kong people to do the job.

The legislator noted that Shenzhen residents currently holding multiple entry permits that are still valid can still come to the SAR free of the latest restrictions. As such, he believed that the situation can only gradually improve before being brought under control.

Quoting government figures, Yiu said about 4.59 million mainland people visited Hong Kong more than once weekly last year.

"Most of them were day trippers who came here just to shop. They were not normal tourists because they did not stay overnight in hotels or use other tourist facilities or services to a great extent. Therefore, the new policy will not have a big impact on our tourism industry," he said.

However, Yiu said drug stores, groceries and chain stores selling products much sought by mainland residents will be hit.

He criticized recent rowdy protests by Hong Kong people targeting mainland visitors and parallel traders, saying they have done more harm to the tourism industry, and made mainland people and foreign tourists think Hong Kong is no longer a tourist-friendly place.

He cited the recent international jewelry show as well as the Rugby Sevens tournament, noting that hotels in Wan Chai used to be full in March in the past, but this year, their occupancy rates and revenues had dropped, and it's feared this will continue.

To make up for the loss of visitors from Shenzhen, Yiu supports the call to extend to the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) to other mainland cities, such as Xi'an, Qingdao and Harbin.

"We should, at the same time, loosen our policy while tightening it to show that Hong Kong is not slamming the door on all mainland visitors. It's high time we allowed residents from three mainland cities to visit Hong Kong under a pilot scheme. These are new tourist groups with big spending power," he suggested.

Yiu blamed the SAR government for failing to take the initiative over the years to deal with the problem of an excessive number of visitors and its impact on the daily lives of Hong Kong citizens.

He said that since the IVS was introduced in 2003, little or nothing had been done on tourism planning, such as how to cope with the huge number of tourists and the effect on residents.

The fact that Chief Secretary for Administration Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor leads a cross-department task force to tackle the problem of Hong Kong people engaged in cross-boundary parallel trade activities reflects that tourism involves different policy aspects, yet the departments lack cooperation among themselves, he commented.

joseph@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 04/14/2015 page3)