Letters | Do Hongkongers really want Ocean Park’s tourist crowds, or the jobs it provides?

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Ocean Park has been closed since January 26 due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is feared the theme park may run out of cash soon. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 8:00am, 13 May 2020Updated: 8:00am, 13 May 2020

Ocean Park could not make a profit when Hong Kong was flooded with tourists. So it is utter nonsense for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her administration to suggest that, by injecting billions of taxpayers’ money into Ocean Park, it will suddenly make profits at a time when tourism is dead and very likely to remain so for a considerable amount of time (“Ocean Park needs HK$5 billion bailout, but are taxpayers being taken for a ride?”, May 11). Ocean Park is a redundant attraction which, unlike Hong Kong Disneyland, is in the wrong part of town, being as far from the airport as possible.

It is suggested that, if Ocean Park collapses, valuable jobs will be lost and Hong Kong’s tourist industry will be savaged. This raises two important questions:

Does Hong Kong want the kind of tourism that the government suggests Ocean Park will attract?
Do new graduates from Hong Kong’s universities and colleges want the kind of jobs that Ocean Park offers?

I would suggest that if these questions are put to our young in Hong Kong – and perhaps to the community at large – the answers to both would be a resounding “no”.

The money that the government proposes to throw away on Ocean Park would be better spent on creating tech jobs and industries in Hong Kong and enhancing further Hong Kong’s position as the major financial centre in Asia: industries and jobs which would offer opportunity and hope to those leaving colleges and universities.

N. B. Bentley, Tai Tam

Free admission and cheap dining will save Ocean Park