Advertisement
Tourism
Hong KongHong Kong Economy

As Covid-19 crisis keeps visitors away, Hong Kong’s battered travel agents run out of options, hope for financial relief

  • Companies shrink, let go of staff or shut down while waiting for stalled world travel to resume
  • One company scores with ‘virtual tours’, others venture into e-commerce to stay in business

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
3
A closed travel agency in Sha Tin. Photo: Winson Wong
Kanis Leung
The Covid-19 pandemic forced 88 Hong Kong travel agents to close last year, while others downsized or began sharing premises to cut costs and carry on.

“We never imagined business for the whole of 2020 would stop like that. It’s hard to endure,” said Timothy Chui Ting-pong, chief operations officer of Taiwan Good Travel Company, which mostly organised small-scale tours for visitors.

From around April, he will start sharing his 800 sq ft office in Hung Hom with two other businesses and save rent of around HK$4,000 (US$516) each month. He hopes to find a few more partners to split the bill.

“Now we have no business, so it’s useless for me to occupy a big office,” Chui said, adding that his four employees were working for a mask firm to earn an income and did not have to return to the office.

Hong Kong agencies were hit hard after international travel ground to a standstill as Covid-19 spread across the world last year, with the city recording its first cases in January.

Arrivals shrank 93.6 per cent to just 3.57 million from 2019 figures, which were already affected by anti-government protests that kept visitors away. Hong Kong had 65.1 million visitors in 2018.
Advertisement