Vaccine pass already hurting business at struggling Hong Kong restaurants just hours after launch, industry representative says
- Chief of catering industry body says business at his restaurant group was down 40 per cent in the wake of the scheme’s introduction
- One restaurant in Causeway Bay said only half the usual number of diners showed up on Thursday morning, but those that did had no problem using the vaccine pass
The launch of the government’s vaccine pass scheme has proved to be yet another blow to Hong Kong’s already struggling restaurants, with one industry representative reporting an immediate drop in revenue and patrons being turned away for failing to comply with the new rules.
Ray Chui Man-wai, chairman of Kam Kee Holdings, which operates 44 restaurants, said his group’s business was already down by 40 per cent following the scheme’s introduction on Thursday morning, blaming the vaccine pass and a newly lowered cap on the number of diners per table for dampening people’s desire to eat out.
“There are quite a number of diners who still don’t know how to use the vaccine pass. They think they only need to scan their ‘Leave Home Safe’ app, but in fact they need to scan their vaccination record separately,” he said. “Our staff need to assist them one by one.”
Residents must also register their visit on the government’s “Leave Home Safe” risk-exposure app.
Chui, who is also the chairman of the industry group Institute of Dining Art, said about 10 per cent of would-be diners on Thursday morning had been barred from entering restaurants as they had forgotten to upload their vaccination record to “Leave Home Safe”.
“Most of them were elderly people,” he said. “They had no idea that they needed to save their vaccination records in their app, and felt very frustrated.”
