HKFP Lens: 1.4 million visitors flock to Hong Kong over China’s Golden Week holiday
Over 1.4 million tourists from across the Chinese mainland visited Hong Kong over the weeklong “Golden Week” holiday marking National Day, official statistics have shown.
Gone are the days when mainland visitors were drawn to Hong Kong’s high-end shopping. Now, many are descending on once-sleepy neighbourhoods and scenic country parks to “check in” on social media apps like Xiaohongshu.
On the anniversary of the day the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, tourists crowded a Sai Kung trail that offers dramatic views of the Po Pin Chau sea stack, a popular ecotourism site.
Like many other scenic spots in the Hong Kong countryside, the trail was popularised by the Instagram-like Xiaohongshu. On New Year’s Eve last year, a young man from mainland China fell to his death while taking photos from the viewing platform.
Authorities have since introduced a booking system for the Po Pin Chau trail in an effort to curb overtourism.
However, environmental group Greenpeace has reported continuing overcrowding in spite of the new measures. The NGO last week pointed to soil erosion, damage to vegetation, and rampant littering at the site.
Sharp Island, another hotspot in Sai Kung, also saw large crowds of tourists over the Golden Week holiday.
On Sunday, around 3,010 people came ashore at the island’s Half Moon Bay, with many harvesting marine life in the intertidal zone – a practice Greenpeace warns threatens the local environment.
Meanwhile, travellers from mainland China continued to pour into established attractions like Mong Kok and the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, as well as sites more recently promoted by the government like the colonial-era Yau Ma Tei Police Station.
New “check-in points” have also sprung up in neighbourhoods that used to be off the beaten path.
In Kennedy Town, visitors posed across the street from a popular café and gathered in a basketball court that went viral for its view of the street below leading down to the harbourside.
According to Immigration Department numbers, the seven-day holiday saw over 1.4 million arrivals by mainland tourists – the second-highest ever recorded for the week, exceeding the government’s original projection of 1.29 million mainland arrivals.
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Kyle Lam is a Hong Kong Baptist University graduate who has worked as a photojournalist and reporter since 2013. His work has been published by HK01, the European Pressphoto Agency, Bloomberg and Ming Pao. Lam is the recipient of several prizes from the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association and Human Rights Press Awards.
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