Preparation for Lunar New Year Golden Week

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The Tourism Commission is liaising with various government departments and the tourism industry in drawing up measures to prepare for the possible surge of visitors from the Mainland during the Lunar New Year Golden Week.

These measures will enhance the flow of visitors through various boundary control points, increase the capacity of transportation facilities, and step up promotion and information dissemination to visitors on consumer protection and health issues.

Ms Eva Cheng, the Commissioner for Tourism, said, "Hong Kong is a popular destination for Mainland tourists, both for tour groups and individual travellers. We expect an increased number of arrivals from the Mainland during the Lunar New Year Golden Week. The measures adopted for the last National Day Golden Week and Christmas/New Year were proven effective and demonstrated our capacity in receiving large volume of visitors. We need to make the best possible preparations and will continue with and strengthen those measures that have proven effective. We endeavour to enhance the travel experience of every visitor to Hong Kong."

The measures cover the following areas:

1) Arrangements for immigration clearance at Boundary Control Points;

2) Protection of visitors' health;

3) Arrangement of facilities;

4) Information dissemination;

5) Visitors' information service;

6) Consumer protection;

7) Coordination with Guangdong Province

Ms Cheng added, "All the measures are, by and large, the same as those used in the previous National Day Golden Week. The departments are well prepared and will flexibly deploy the resources according to different situations. We will also maintain close liaison with the Guangdong Provincial Tourism Administration to understand more about the visitor flow."

Coordinated by the Tourism Commission, the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong (TIC), Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners (FHKHO) and Hong Kong Hotels Association (HKHA) agreed to standardise the existing practice in hotel room reservations into a "Good Business Practice" for the hotels and travel agents and ensure a high level of transparency.

The "Good Business Practice" standard covers such matters as the early release of information by hotels on room charges, availability and allocation, cancellation policies, and deposit arrangements.

Ms Cheng added, "I am glad to see the three industry organisations agreeing to strengthen their coordination and improve the quality of service in the tourism industry.

Details of measures for the Lunar New Year Golden Week are as follows:

1) Arrangements for immigration clearance at boundary control points

* Immigration Department will deploy additional staff to various border control points to ensure smooth passenger flow.

* Immigration Department held briefing sessions on January 12 for travel agents and familiarisation visits to Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau today (January 16) to ensure that they understood the clearance procedures and so they could familiarise themselves with the border control points.

* A Joint Command Centre (manned by the Immigration Department, Police, and Custom and Excise Department) will be activated from Monday (January 19) to February 1 to monitor the visitor flow at land border control points and to take prompt action if necessary.

2) Protection of visitors' health

* To avoid a resurgence of SARS in Hong Kong, the Department of Health (DH) will continue to implement health screening measures, including health declaration and temperature screening at all control points. To enhance the existing disease surveillance system, Hong Kong will continue to maintain close contact with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and overseas health authorities, and Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau will notify each other on SARS and exchange information on other infectious diseases. DH has formulated tailor-made health instructions for different sectors of the community, including the tourism and hotel industries, and has organised SARS-related training programmes for members of these trades.

* The Tourism Commission has reminded the trade - the Travel Industry Council (TIC), Hong Kong Association of Registered Tour Coordinators, Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners (FHKHO) and Hong Kong Hotels Association (HKHA) - to comply with guidelines issued by the DH and to take precautionary measures against SARS.

* The DH has maintained close liaison with the travel trade. It has updated the trade regularly via letters on the latest SARS situation in the Mainland with appropriate health advice. Coordinated by the Tourism Commission, the DH met with trade representatives on December 31, 2003 to update them on the implementation of precautionary measures against infectious diseases, including SARS, and briefed the travel agents on January 12 on the precautionary measures at land border control points in preparation for the peak passenger flow during the Lunar New Year Golden Week.

3) Arrangement of facilities

(a) Transportation

Cross Boundary Coach Service

* The Transport Department (TD) will issue 310, 70 and 104 ad hoc quotas for cross-boundary coach services via Lok Ma Chau (LMC), Man Kam To (MKT) and Sha Tau Kok (STK) respectively during the Lunar New Year period (January 17 to 31). The TD will also issue 75, 22 and 8 new regular cross-boundary coach quotas for LMC, MKT and STK respectively before the Lunar New Year. The total passenger capacity will increase by 23,560 (assuming each coach can hold 40 passengers).

LMC-Huanggang Shuttle Buses (Yellow Buses)

* The Yellow Buses will deploy additional buses and increase service frequency, to meet the increase in passenger demand. Depending on the actual demand, it can deploy seven additional buses to raise the passenger capacity by 40% from about 1,800 to 2,500 per hour per direction.

Other transportation arrangements

* The TD will activate, if necessary, its round-the-clock Emergency Transport Coordination Centre to liaise with relevant departments and take necessary action, such as broadcasting messages to the public, to deal with emergencies.

(b) Hotel accommodation

* The TIC has reminded the travel agents to ensure that group tours only set off after hotel accommodation had been confirmed.

* The TIC, FHKHO and HKHA have been working together to ensure transparency in the existing practice of hotel room bookings for Mainland tour groups. They also agreed to standardise the existing practice in hotel room reservations into a "Good Business Practice" for the hotels and travel agents. The three industry organisations will also tackle hotel room allocation problems to ensure appropriate accommodation arrangements for visitors.

* The TIC has reminded travel agents to receive tour groups at border control points on time to ensure smooth visitor flow.

* The TIC has asked their members to distribute arrival cards and health declaration forms to Mainland tour group leaders in advance so that the group visitors can complete the form prior to arrival at the counter to speed up the clearance process. Health declaration forms can now be downloaded at www.info.gov.hk/info/sars/c_tourist.htm.

* Tour groups are requested by the Immigration Department to cross the boundary through Lo Wu border control point between January 21 and 25, with a view to alleviate the burden at LMC border control point.

(d) Crowd control

* The trade has been asked to liaise among themselves to avoid bunching group tours at popular tourist spots.

* Police will step up patrol in the tourist areas to maintain law and order.

4) Information dissemination

* Between January 19 and February 1, the Immigration Department will upload daily arrival statistics on its website. Such information will also be hyperlinked to the HKTB's homepage, www.discoverhongkong.com and a joint website with Mainland and Macau tourism authorities www.visitgd.com.

* The hotel trade will upload the forecast occupancy rate for the Golden Week onto the homepage of Hong Kong Hotels Association - www.hkha.org - for visitors' reference. This information will also be hyperlinked to the HKTB's homepage.

5) Visitors' information service

* Between January 22 and 26, the operating hours of the customer service hotline of the HKTB and TIC will be extended to 9pm.

* The HKTB will step up visitor services at all border control points from January 19 to 28. The operating hours of customer services counters at the airport and Lo Wu will be extended to 7am - 11pm. Additional staff will be deployed at LMC from 8am to 4pm, at China Ferry Terminal, Macau Ferry Terminal, and Hung Hom from 10am to 6pm.

* New information leaflets on festive events and enhanced Quality Tourism Service (QTS) Scheme will be distributed during the Golden Week at the border control points.

6) Consumer protection

* the TIC has reminded its members of the "100% Refund" policy and will follow up complaints against unsatisfactory service by travel agents.

* Tour guides are responsible for reminding visitors about the "100% Refund" policy before bringing them to shop at their designated retailers.

* The HKTB will step up promotion of the QTS Scheme.

* Police will step up patrol at tourist shopping areas and distribute consumer protection reminder leaflets at shopping areas in the vicinity of the blacklisted shops. They will assist visitors if necessary.

* Visitors joining local tours organised by licensed travel agents will be offered assistance by the TIC in the event of travel agent default and complaints about service quality.

7) Coordination with Guangdong Province

* A meeting on the "Arrangement for Festival Visitors" between Border Commanders (Police and Immigration Department) and their Mainland counterparts was held recently to discuss and examine the problems of passenger flows at border control points.

* We have maintained close liaison with the Guangdong Provincial Tourism Administration (GPTA) and will continue to support each other in respect of immigration clearance, resources management, dissemination of consumer protection information and travel tips, etc. In view of the recent development in SARS, the GPTA has already agreed to step up health screening measures at border control points as well as publicity on the travel tips related to personal health and hygiene and advance hotel room reservations.

* The GPTA agreed to step up efforts to remind Mainland visitors to monitor their health, and to seek medical treatment as soon as possible if not feeling well, in order to protect themselves and other people's safety.

Ends/Friday, January 16, 2004

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