South China Morning Post
February 11, 2003



MONITOR by JAKE VAN DER KAMP

Answer: Because they have become desperate about how far Singapore has fallen behind Hong Kong and big talk is their usual way of dealing with such things.

Evidence: I present the first chart on trends in visitor nights spent in the two cities and all I really need say about it is that I am not absolutely sure of the average length of visitor stay in Hong Kong last year. Pollsters ACNielsen had been given the job of collecting those figures last year but it seems the task is beyond them. I have instead relied on a September estimate by the Hong Kong Tourism Board of an average of 3.5 nights.

It will not make much difference if that estimate is a little on the high side. The story is clearly that Hong Kong is in the middle of a visitor boom while the number of visitor nights spent in Singapore is actually declining.

For more evidence of the boom, look at the table. On every count we come up tops in Asia. Hong Kong has the highest number in both total and visitor arrivals from China plus the highest growth rate in both categories by a wide margin. In fact it has more than two times as many arrivals from China as all other countries in Asia that report these figures and the three that do not report them are insignificant anyway.

More than that, as the second chart shows, Hong Kong's share in Asia of visitors from China is rising, not falling. It is doing so strongly and has been doing so for more than two years.

So if Singapore would like to have some of these people by taking them away from our immigration queues we can afford to be charitable at no great loss to ourselves and possibly great benefit to Singapore.

That little island down there, let us remember, is suffering badly at the moment from the effects of trying to maintain communist practices long after the rest of the world has abandoned them and it could do with a little help. After all, how can anyone live without having at least once seen the Merlion? It is such an awe-inspiring sight. So were the drunks on the Boat Quay the last time I went (and with such praise for Singapore I do not think I shall go again soon).

But lest we attribute all of our tourism boom to visitors from China, let us take note that 40 per cent of the total is not the same as the total, that the number of visitors from elsewhere is also now growing strongly and that when last measured (could we have the most recent figures please, ACNielsen?), visitors from China were spending easily as much here per person as visitors from elsewhere.

Thus if Asian rivals chase mainland tourists, as our headline put it over a report on how they are licking their chops at the prospect, there is no reason to worry. Hong Kong is still the city that visitors from China wish to visit first and there are plenty of crumbs falling off this table to satisfy the appetites of other countries in the region.

In fact they may sometimes find those crumbs more nutritious than we find the feast. China Travel (HK), for instance, is planning to buy 15 more cross-border tour bus licences from the cartel across the border that controls them, bringing its holding to 80. In other words, we pay to put up the infrastructure for tourism but someone across the border collects the revenue up front without having to spend a cent.

If that is the way the money works in this game we should certainly not be troubled that others want in.

                                                            Home