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Numerous tourists visited Hong Kong during the Labour Day Golden Week. To ensure tourists' and public safety, the Office of the Licensing Authority (OLA) of the Home Affairs Department has carried out enforcement actions in various tourist accommodation hotspots to combat unlicensed guesthouses in the past two weeks.
Since April 24, the OLA has conducted a number of special enforcement actions against suspected unlicensed guesthouses, including surprise inspections, large-scale inter-departmental operations and decoy operations in various districts throughout the territory. The operations were conducted day and night and also during the public holiday. Among the 249 premises inspected, 18 were suspected to have unlicensed guesthouse activities. Three persons suspected of breaching their conditions of stay were also found during the operations and they have been referred to the Police for follow-up action.
The Chief Officer (Licensing Authority), Mr Au Wing-hung, said, "The OLA will proceed to prosecution immediately once sufficient evidence is gathered. Operating an unlicensed guesthouse is a criminal offence. Any person convicted of the offence is liable to imprisonment, which will also lead to a criminal record. The maximum penalty is a fine of $200,000 and imprisonment for two years, and a fine of $20,000 for each day during which the offence continues."
Mr Au added, "In the first four months of this year, the OLA carried out 4 520 inspections targeting unlicensed guesthouses and instituted 36 prosecutions. From 2009 to the end of April 2015, a total of 571 persons were convicted of operating unlicensed hotels or guesthouses and 43 of them have been sentenced to imprisonment. The maximum sentence imposed was three months' imprisonment."
In addition to stepping up law enforcement actions, the OLA has strengthened its intelligence collection through routine patrols and the dedicated Internet enforcement team that browses webpages as well as discussion forums and blogs to track down suspected unlicensed guesthouse activities on the one hand, and to make appeals to tourists to patronise licensed guesthouses on the other.
The OLA has also implemented a stringent measure targeting licensed guesthouse operators who operate guesthouses at other premises, commonly known as "shadow guesthouses". If a guesthouse licence holder is convicted of unlicensed guesthouse operation, the OLA will consider cancelling all the licences being held by the licensee concerned or refusing to renew the licences pursuant to the Hotel and Guesthouse Accommodation Ordinance. Since implementation of the measure in 2009, the OLA has cancelled or refused to renew the licences of 21 guesthouses for this reason.
On the publicity front, the OLA has recently launched a mobile application, "Hong Kong Licensed Hotels and Guesthouses", which allows tourists and the public to search for the latest details and locations of licensed hotels and guesthouses anytime and anywhere. The OLA has also uploaded the information to its website (www.hadla.gov.hk) and requires all licensed guesthouses to display a logo at the main entrance and on the doors of all guestrooms for tourists' easy identification.
Anyone with information about suspected unlicensed guesthouses may report it to the OLA through the hotline (Tel: 2881 7498), by email (hadlaenq@had.gov.hk), by fax (2504 5805) using the report form downloaded from the OLA website, or through the mobile application "Hong Kong Licensed Hotels and Guesthouses".
Ends/Monday, May 11, 2015
Issued at HKT 18:49
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