‘I’m so excited’: mainland Chinese visitors on low-cost tours revel in Hong Kong’s reopening, while residents disagree over crowds
- Mainland Chinese visitors on tours ranging from HK$1,888 to HK$3,288 per person pack itineraries with sightseeing and photo-taking
- Return of budget tour groups to city has drawn ire of some residents, with images of visitors eating takeaway food in busy neighbourhoods going viral
Retiree Tien Xuefang, from central mainland China, has been eagerly awaiting her maiden visit to Hong Kong this week on one of the low-cost tours that have recently returned to the city’s densely populated areas, drawing some residents’ ire.
The former seamstress, 60, along with her two sisters and husband, arrived in the city from Henan on Wednesday for a two-day visit on the first leg of a trip to southern China.
Their 40-strong tour group was first brought to Hung Hom for sightseeing before being taken to a Chinese restaurant in To Kwa Wan for a lunch break which lasted less than 30 minutes. The final stop of the day was at Golden Bauhinia Square at the harbourfront in Wan Chai.
“I’ve been wanting to visit Hong Kong since 1997 to see how prosperous it is. I’m so excited to see places with my own eyes instead of watching them on the television,” she said, referring to the square and the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui.
She said she was not aware of either M+ museum or Hong Kong Palace Museum, two new landmarks in the West Kowloon Cultural District.
Tien and her family are among the many mainland patrons returning to the city on budget tours for the first time in three years after the border fully reopened in early February.
Images showing hundreds of these visitors eating takeaway food on the streets of To Kwa Wan in Kowloon went viral earlier in the week.
