Tuesday, October 07, 2008

You know something's wrong when....

Mainland Chinese stop splurging! The Hong Kong Tourism Board yesterday announced that visitor arrivals from Mainland China during this year’s National Day Golden Week holidays reached 481,987, a 9.5% jump on the same period last year. Good numbers for sure, but what's got the retail market in Hong Kong worried is that retail sales were worse than expected. It's long been touted that mainland Chinese would be the saving grace for Hong Kong's retail market in this period of financial uncertainty, particularly in the luxury goods market. But apparently not.
The South China Morning Post is reporting that while individual mainland travellers jumped 14%, sales surged less than 5% compared to the same period last year with expectations from store owners significantly down.
"We're a bit disappointed because this is lower than the 10 per cent target," Lau Hak-bun, sales director at Chow Sang Sang Jewellery, said.
The SCMP also says that Oriental Watch store saw its revenue over the Golden Week dropped by about 20% to 30% for its Central shop, although our Tsim Sha Tsui and Jordan shops did better. Maybe it wasn't a Golden Week after all.

1 comment:

PR Advocate said...

It may not have been a golden week for retail shops and tourism, but it wasn't bad for residents who normally see even more crammed trains, over crowded streets and struggle to get a table at restaurants!!