A representative from the catering industry on Sunday forecast that local restaurants would see revenues rise by 10 percent year-on-year during the Labour Day Golden Week holiday.

In an interview with RTHK, Simon Wong, president of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades, said the growth was mainly driven by a surge of mainland visitors.

"Since we have close to half a million visitors coming to Hong Kong for the first two days on the Golden Week, we saw that the catering industry for these two days has been very good," he said.

"I would estimate that there would be an increase of about 10 percent in our business and even for some busy districts with a lot of tourist attractions, the business enjoyed about 15 to 20 percent increase in their business," Wong added.

Wong explained that restaurants in busy areas like Tsim Sha Tsui, Yau Ma Tei, and Jordan stayed open till midnight due to high demand during the holiday, resulting in higher expected growth.

Despite a large number of locals leaving for the Greater Bay Area or Shenzhen, he noted that a 13 percent year-on-year increase in mainland visitors helped fill in the gap.

Wong also forecast the industry would record a daily turnover of around HK$280 million to HK$300 million on average during the holiday.

"Compared to Mother's Day or Christmas holiday, the record can be HK$350 million, or even record high of around HK$400 million, but with HK$300 million for the Labour Day per day business is already quite well," he said.

As of 10am on Sunday, the third day of the holiday, the Immigration Department recorded more than 189,000 inbound and outbound visitors.

There were around 111,000 inbound visitors, with mainland tourists accounting for over 61,000, while more than 78,000 people left Hong Kong, of which about 53,000 were Hongkongers.


Edited by Tony Sabine