William Cheng Kai-ming, chairman of Shun Ho Property Investments, which owns and operates nine mid-tier Hong Kong hotels, pointed to the example of its Best Western Plus Hotel Kowloon in Tsim Sha Tsui, which took 14 bookings on October 3, checking guests in the same day for between HK$2,600 and HK$3,900 (US$332–498) per night, compared with the normal rate of HK$900–1,000.
Mainland tourists who flocked to Hong Kong during the recent the National Day “golden week” holiday forked out close to quadruple the normal rate for a hotel room as many last-minute bookers were spurred by the opening of the new high-speed rail link.
William Cheng Kai-ming, chairman of Shun Ho Property Investments, which owns and operates nine mid-tier Hong Kong hotels, pointed to the example of its Best Western Plus Hotel Kowloon in Tsim Sha Tsui, which took 14 bookings on October 3, checking guests in the same day for between HK$2,600 and HK$3,900 (US$332–498) per night, compared with the normal rate of HK$900–1,000.
Cheng revealed that most of the company’s hotels had a “100% occupancy rate”, and that around 80% of arrivals during the holiday week were from mainland China; most were travelling individually rather than in a tour group, South China Morning Post reported.
Average bookings were made two days in advance, compared to a month, he said.
Over Victoria Harbour in North Point, the newly opened 671-room Hotel VIC also reported a flood of late bookings. The average price paid at the VIC was HK$1,700 per night, about 30% higher than normal rates, and mainland arrivals accounted for half its guests in the period.
Michael Li Hong-shing, executive director of the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, said pre-bookings run at between 60 and 70% before the week-long national holiday, which started on October 1. But during that week they sat at 90 to 95% occupancy rate, many made at the last minute, with some hotels reporting they were completely full.
He expects the service to bring in visitors from further afield, too, other than just Guangdong, including Fujian, Hubei, Hunan and Guangxi provinces.
On October 1 alone, more than 60,000 mainlanders used the cross-border high-speed rail link, said MTR Corp.
Experts now project Hong Kong is poised to be Asia’s fastest-growing hotel market this year.
Global property agency JLL’s hotels and hospitality group showed that the city’s revenue per available room (RevPAR) grew 12% year-on-year to HK$1,196 in the year to August.
Hong Kong currently has nearly 80,000 hotel rooms. JLL is predicting the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of new hotel rooms coming on stream in Hong Kong will be 2.4% until 2022, but that’s still below the 4.3% CAGR enjoyed in the decade to 2017.