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The following is the transcript of the media session by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, after meeting representatives of the tourism sector at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre this (August 14) afternoon:
Question: Mr Tung, how do you respond to hotel operators' concern on the Home Ownership Scheme(HOS) proposal on turning HOS flats into guesthouses, and secondly, how do you see the number of vacant rooms? Will there be enough rooms for visitors?
Chief Executive: Well, firstly, I think we should not just be looking at the coming holidays because what we have, firstly, as Selina says, is a happy problem. And secondly is this, that we need to look at two things. One is that because of the Central Government's support and policy and the Guangdong Government's tremendous support, there is a surge of arrivals here, so it is a happy problem we have. But if you look at this over a long period of time, the demand for hotel rooms and the demand for all sorts of hospitality services will continue to increase, and are we ready for it is not just for September, not just for October 1 - in the long term, how shall we deal with that? And secondly, don't forget that by the end of 2005 Disneyland will be coming on. That's only two years away, and how do we deal with that when that happens? And we need to be looking at all these really, really in the longer-term basis as well as we need to take care of the short-term problem. We will do both.
Question: What about the HOS proposal? Do you think the Government seems to be interfering in the hotel industry?
Chief Executive: As I said earlier on, we have no intention of interfering in the marketplace. But the market at this moment has a sudden surge of demand, and as a Government we need to look at these things. I know that the Housing Authority is looking at this as a proposal to be made and as a Government we will be talking with all the concerned parties to see how we will move forward. But one thing we will do is this: we need to have some contingency plan, but whatever we do we will do it together with the trade.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
End/Thursday, August 14, 2003
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