Fresh wave of Hongkongers leaves city on second day of Easter holiday weekend while local malls roll out free parking for first time since 2003

Some of Hong Kong’s large shopping centres, including Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui and Times Square in Causeway Bay, adopted motorist-friendly policies to drive footfall, with a queue of vehicles waiting outside the former at about lunch time.

Times Square granted patrons two free hours a day, which could be raised to a maximum of seven hours with spending.

Harbour City, Hong Kong’s largest shopping centre with over 2,000 car parking spaces, has offered five hours of daily free-parking and up to 10 hours if customers spend at the mall or restaurants, a promotion unseen since the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or Sars, in 2003.

The Post found that the queue of motorists along Canton Road had waiting times ranging from 15 to 45 minutes to get a space at Harbour City. Some drivers appeared to give up, having waited for just five minutes.

Jewellery salesman Bharat Singh, 46, lined up for about half an hour in his convertible before he reached the car park entrance. He was trying to spend the holiday around Tsim Sha Tsui with his two daughters, he said.

“It is a good perk,” he said. “The location is very convenient, and you are free from worries you have to go back and refer to the meter every hour if you park your car on the street.”

Singh added that they would have lunch at the shopping mall to claim the full 10-hour free parking before going to Victoria Harbour. Five hours of parking costs up to HK$170 (US$22).

A total of 795,610 people, predominantly Hong Kong residents, left the city on Friday, while another 370,218 people took inbound trips, according to the figures.

The number of outbound travellers on Good Friday for the 2018 Easter saw 722,250 people leave Hong Kong and logged 396,839 inbound travellers. The year 2018 was a record year for tourism.

More than 580,000 Hongkongers leave city on first day of Easter holiday

Among those making early cross-border trips on Saturday was Chris Yau and Ling Chan and their nine-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son.

The family of four arrived at the Lo Wu border before 9am to avoid the likelihood of huge crowds. Chan said they planned the three-day trip during the Easter holiday to Shanwei city in Guangdong province starting a month ago.

“It is the first time we take our daughter and son to Shanwei,” the housewife said. “The kids felt a bit bored staying in Hong Kong and wanted to go elsewhere.”

Chan said she and her husband, who works in finance, expected to spend about HK$4,000 for the trip, including about HK$2,000 of hotel expenses while the remaining would be used for dining as well as shopping for toys and souvenirs.

Housewife Mandy Wu and her 12-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son left their home in Mong Kok at about 8am on Saturday to take MTR to Lo Wu, where they joined two other families for a two-day trip to Shenzhen.

Wu, 37, said a total of 10 of them would visit some popular attractions such as theme parks Window of the World and Happy Valley Shenzhen, and she expected to spend between HK$2,000 and HK$3,000 for the trip plus about HK$400 of hotel expenses.

She added that despite visiting Shenzhen about a dozen times since the border reopened after the coronavirus pandemic, she was still enthusiastic about making the trips because of the lower prices and better service attitudes.

“Things are expensive in Hong Kong, while there are more choices in Shenzhen, and people there are nicer and have better service attitudes,” she said, adding that Shenzhen was a top destination to spend holidays for the family.

Hong Kong civil servants share lessons from mainland China exchange programme

Aside from those making their own cross-border trips on the second day of the Easter holiday, many Hongkongers joined tours of two- to three-day trips to Guangdong cities.

Social worker Bobo Cheng, 58, and her husband, together with other five relatives, joined a two-day tour to Huizhou city, along with about 30 other Hongkongers, departing from the Shenzhen side of the Lo Wu border.

She said it had become a trend among her family and friends to visit and spend time in mainland cities during holidays, as Hong Kong was losing its vibe while there were many places of historical interest to visit across the border and unique local cuisine to savour.

Additional reporting by Ezra Cheung