(MENAFN- Asia Times) Tens of thousands of people went to Shenzhen from Hong Kong on Sunday as quarantine-free travels resumed at the borders of the two places for the first time in three years.
The number of people traveling from Hong Kong to Shenzhen via land transport grew to 34,810 on Sunday, about nine times Saturday's figure of 3,938, according to Hong Kong's Immigration Department. Those traveling from Shenzhen to Hong Kong increased by only 54% to 14,912 from 9,663 for the same period.
The northbound travelers on the first day of the“border reopening” were mainly mainlanders who work or study in Hong Kong or some Hong Kong-mainland couples.
Many mainland tourists cannot go to Hong Kong for the moment as they need to spend about two weeks to apply for traveling documents, media reported. They still see Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore as their top travel destinations.
Since the world's first epidemic wave broke out in early 2020, strict quarantine and Covid-testing rules were implemented at the borders between Hong Kong and the mainland. Most people avoided traveling across the borders due to the high costs of hotel quarantine and PCR tests unless they had urgent issues to handle.
The Hong Kong government said last Friday that up to 60,000 could travel to the mainland per day as China had planned to cancel all its quarantine requirements for incoming travelers as of January 8. By Sunday evening, more than 440,000 people had registered on the government's webpage to go north.
Hong Kong media reported dozens of cases where people went to Shenzhen to meet their friends and families.
A Hong Kong man surnamed Yip who married a woman in Huizhou in Guangdong four years ago said he had not met her in person since January 2020, HK01.com reported . He said he hung out with friends overnight on Saturday and caught the first train to go to Shenzhen on Sunday morning.
A Hong Kong woman surnamed Tang received a bunch of roses from her boyfriend surnamed Liu when they met in Shenzhen on Sunday. She said they were classmates but could not meet each other due to the quarantine requirements.
A 24-year-old man surnamed Zhou, who works in Hong Kong, reunited with his girlfriend on Sunday as they could only wave hands to each other on the two sides of the Shenzhen river in the past few years, the South China Morning Post reported .
Another pair also faced the same situation but they failed to see each other on Sunday morning. The girlfriend, who is in Shenzhen, planned to go to Hong Kong but her travel pass expired. They changed their itinerary and successfully met in Macau.
A 13-year-old mainland student who studies in Hong Kong could not meet her elder sister and aunt in Shenzhen for three years, RTHK reported . She reunited with her sister on Sunday. She said she would spend a month in Shenzhen.
According to the current rules, a non-Hong Kong resident has to show a negative PCR test result within 48 hours before traveling to Hong Kong from the mainland. The International Social Service Hong Kong Branch, a non-government organization, said mainland students who study in Hong Kong should be exempted.
Chinese media said that, over the past two weeks, the online searches for flights to Macau, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Phnom Penh had significantly increased. On Sunday, the number of air ticket bookings rose by 628% from a year earlier.
However, Hong Kong's hotels and shops have not yet benefited much, as mainland tourists need to apply for a permit to travel overseas.
Travel Industry Council executive director Fanny Yeung said the number of mainland tourists visiting Hong Kong would not increase significantly in the short term as the Lunar New Year is near. She said more Guangdong tourists will visit Hong Kong in late February but the number will only return to about 10% of the pre-pandemic level.
The Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners said its members had not seen a significant growth in hotel bookings or enquiries. It attributed this to people avoiding overseas travels amid the current epidemic wave in the mainland. It said the hotel demand will not increase until the second half of this year.
Lifestyle International Holdings Ltd, owned by Hong Kong billionaire Thomas Lau, said Monday it will close down its Sogo Tsim Sha Tsui store on March 12 when the store's tenancy expires. It said the“border reopening” will not significantly boost Hong Kong's retail sector within the short run. It added that it will open a flagship store in Kai Tak in East Kowloon.
Meanwhile, Sophia Chong, deputy executive director of the Trade Development Council (TDC), said Monday that it will organize 30 large exhibitions for western merchandizers and Chinese manufacturers this year. Chong said Hong Kong's exhibition sector had been seriously hit by the pandemic during the past three years as it was hard for manufacturers to promote their products in virtual meetings.
read: hk imposes pre-departure pcr tests on mainlanders
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