Report on “Opinion Survey of the Hotel Industry on Vaccination and Recovery” on Feb 5, 2021

The vaccination programme is expected to be launched in March, which brings a silver lining for the containment of the pandemic, the resumption of normal movement of people, and the restart of tourism activities. The Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners (FHKHO) and the Hong Kong Travel Agents’ Relief Alliance conducted an online questionnaire survey in late Jan 2021 to understand the thoughts of industry practitioners on the vaccination programme and business recovery, and we will escalate the survey results to the Government for reference.

The response was very good. The result shows that industry very much hopes that immunity passport cross-boundary travel with the Mainland be resumed and travel bubbles be created as soon as possible and. Also, the hotel industry has great expectations for the vaccination programme and hopes that the epidemic can be brought under control as soon as possible through universal testing. Moreover, the government could help in relieving the burden on hotel operation and continuing to support the travel industry. In view of the serious lag in the assessment of rates by the Rating and Valuation Office, the rates levy has not been reflected in the property valuation in the rapidly deteriorating economy due to COVID-19.

The unreasonable rating has greatly increased the financial pressure on hotels. Therefore, we ask the Government to negotiate with the industry and conduct re-assessment as soon as possible so as to relieve the burden on the industry. Also, strengthening crackdown on unlicensed accommodation is important to the industry.