Wallis Wang
Mainland visitors do not commonly stay in Hong Kong overnight so the government should have prepared for crowds returning north after the fireworks display on New Year’s Day, lawmaker Doreen Kong Yuk-foon said.
She said statistics in November last year showed only half of the over 3.2 million tourists to Hong Kong stayed overnight.
”Among the 1.6 million one-day visitors who did not stay overnight, 85 percent were from the mainland,” Kong said.
”It seems to be the norm that mainlanders do not want to stay overnight. It’s not a new trend and we should have expected that.
”Visitors only stayed in Hong Kong for a few hours to take photos, have a meal and buy some souvenirs. If we cannot lure them to stay for another day by hosting large…