With the joint efforts of our members of the industry, the Government granted permission for travel agents to organize local tour groups in an orderly manner in October last year. Unfortunately, the arrangement only lasted 40 days before it was halted due to the worsening of the local epidemic situation. Having noticed that the epidemic had started to stabilize after a period of time, trade members and I requested the Government to relax the restrictions and resume the arrangement of tour groups. However, since the Government initially required that tourists in the tour groups must be vaccinated or tested, our members found it difficult to fulfill the requirements in reality. In the end, the Government agreed that tour groups could be organized provided that the anti-epidemic measures for tour groups could be strengthened. The local tour groups later resumed from the end of April this year. Later, the Government further relaxed the restrictions appropriately.

 

 

 

 

15 and 16 September 2021- Wrote to the SCED and suggested to relax the number of tour groups to 50 people, increase the upper limit of vehicle seating to 85%, abandon the need for itineraries to include "Green Spots", and increase the upper limit of incentives for each travel agent that has joined the "Green Lifestyle Local Tour Incentive Scheme"

 

 

22 June 2021- The Government announced that with effect from 24 June 2021, if at least two-thirds of the tourists in a local tour group have completed a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the number of tourists for each tourist group can be increased to no more than 100.

 

 

 

 

25 May 2021- At the meeting of the Subcommittee on Subsidiary Legislation Relating to the Prevention and Control of Disease, I asked the Government about the possibility of relaxing the number to 50 or more people per group if there is no case of infection in local tour groups for a period of time. On 26 May 2021, I also wrote to the Secretary for Food and Health (SFH) and requested the Government to relax the limit of local tour groups to 50 people and cancel the limit on the number of seats in the transportation vehicles.

 

 

 

27 April 2021- The Government announced that it would resume the conditional exemptions to allow licensed travel agents to organize local tour groups with no more than 30 people with effect from April 29. I later continued to follow up the situation and hoped to further relax the limit on the number of people in tour groups.

 

 

 

14 April 2021 明報，A08

 

12 April 2021
Submitted a joint letter from various members of the tourism industry to Professor Sophia CHAN Siu-chee, SFH, in which we requested the Government to relax the restrictions on local tour groups as soon as possible. In particular, we hoped that the local tours can be resumed so that hopes could be given to 05 members of the industry to survive and sustain their businesses.

 

 

25 March 2021
At the meeting where various trade assoications and Mr. Edward YAU Tang-wah, SCED, discussed the relaxation of local tours, the Bureau proposed the resumption conditions, including the compulsory requirement for tourist guides and tourists in the group to complete two doses of COVID-19 vaccine or hold a valid negative test certificate within a specified period of time. During the time of discussion, representatives of the tourism industry had made it clear that while the tourist guides of the companies could meet the new requirements, it was rather impossible for them to accept compulsory requirements for tourists to receive vaccination or be tested for COVID-19. After much lobbying and a strong expression of the industry's position, the Bureau finally agreed that the tourists of the tour groups could join the tours in the absence of vaccination.

 

 

9 February 2021
Together with representatives of the tourism industry and trade unions, we met with Mr. Joe WONG Chi-cho, the then Commissioner for Tourism, to discuss issues such as relaxing restrictions for local tours, extending various subsidy schemes, and adding temporary positions for tourism practitioners. We also hoped that the Government could relax the "Group Gathering Prohibition Order" in time and resume local tourism activities once the epidemic has eased.

 

 

3 November 2020
Wrote a letter to the Commissioner for Tourism and suggested to relax the restrictions in areas such as transportation for the "Green Lifestyle Local Tour Incentive Scheme".

 

2 October 2020
Together with Mr. Jason WONG Chun-tat, Chairman of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong (TIC), etc., and met with Mr. Joe WONG Chi-cho, the then Commissioner for Tourism, and requested the Government to grant exemptions to travel agents in organizing local tours under the "Group Gathering Prohibition Order", thereby enabling members of the industry to better survive the difficult business environment.

 

 

23 September 2020
Joined representatives of the tourism industry to meet with Professor Sophia CHAN Siu-chee, SFH, in an effort to urge the resumption of local tour groups.