Hong Kong restaurants to face 20% drop in business over Easter holiday: expert

Hong Kong restaurants can expect a 20 per cent drop in business during the coming Easter holiday, an industry leader has said, with the government estimating a 34 per cent increase of 6.04 million people entering and exiting the city’s borders during the five-day period.

Simon Wong Ka-wo, president of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades, told the Post on Monday that the decrease in business already took into account a 10 to 15 per cent increase in transactions based on last Easter, attributed to a rise in mainland Chinese visitors.

“Although there is no Easter holiday across the border, we do enjoy benefits from the new multiple-entry visa policy for Shenzhen residents to visit Hong Kong,” Wong said. “Last year, the outflow of Hong Kong residents to the Greater Bay Area was extraordinarily high.”

“The drop [from normal business days] is due to the huge number of Hong Kong residents travelling, while visitors are spending less per person,” he added, conceding that those from the mainland were not spending as much as they used to.

Earlier in the day, Wong told a radio programme that restaurants recorded a 20 per cent drop in business over the three-day weekend that started with the Ching Ming Festival earlier this month, which was more than the expected 15 per cent.

According to Wong, rents for restaurants have come down by about 10 per cent generally, which means that some businesses could reduce costs and cut prices for their dishes.