The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) announced on Friday it will trial a real-name reservation system for the popular Po Pin Chau trail in Sai Kung East Country Park to prevent overcrowding during upcoming peak holiday periods.

No booking will, however, be needed for trips to the nearby High Island Reservoir East Dam.

The kilometre-long Po Pin Chau trail has been particularly popular among mainland visitors, who visit the scenic spot during holidays.

The trial will cover weekends in September, as well as during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day Golden Week holiday.

Advance bookings will be required for visits between 9am and 5pm on September 5–6, 12–13, 19–20, and 25–27, as well as October 1–7.

Daily visitor capacity for the trail will be capped at 2,000, split into four two-hour time slots with a maximum of 500 visitors per session.

Registration for visiting the site on September 5–6 will open on the Klook platform on Monday at 11am.

Afterwards, bookings will open every Monday at 11am for the following week's visits.

Slots will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and every booking will be limited to a maximum of five people.

Successful applicants will need to present electronic vouchers and identity cards on site for verification.

"We think that the first-come, first-served system actually is a very fair system," Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Mickey Lai said in explaining why they chose it over a ballot system.

"And we also impose other requirements like requiring personal data to make sure that the system won't be abused."

Lai also said no-shows would not be penalised during the trial phase.

"This is a trial and we try to keep everything as simple as possible so that the public and the tourists will be able to understand how it works and get used to the system," he said.

"So, we at this stage will not impose any penalty or punishment as such even though they wouldn’t turn up."

When asked about measures to block queuing bots, AFCD Assistant Director Esther To stressed that the department is confident in Klook's ability to detect and stop suspicious activity.

The department added that it will conduct a review after the trial to decide how the next stage will be conducted.


Edited by Aaron Tam