Hong Kong saw a two percent drop in the numbers of mainland tourists visiting over this year’s May Day holiday, while nearby Macau saw a massive 20.3% leap in visitors, as more decided to sink their money into the city’s massive casinos instead of Hong Kong’s department stores.
This shift could be linked to some secret mainland desire to lose money in Blackjack, but it very well may be tied to feelings of discrimination felt by mainlanders upon arrival to the lovely city state that refers to them as “locusts.”
With piss-gate and anti-mainlander-pooping still fresh in everyone’s memories, some believe that Hong Kong needs to smooth some tensions (and/or get used to people peeing on the street). Jing Daily reports:
This marks the first time since 2005 that [tourism] numbers have declined, and the slump may be related to growing tensions between Hong Kong residents and mainland visitors that have boiled over in recent months. Hong Kongers have been increasingly prone to protest against Chinese tourists […]
If slumping visitor numbers continue, the Hong Kong government will likely feel the need to take concrete actions to smooth tensions and make the city more welcoming to mainlanders—or risk losing more Chinese tourist revenue to eager neighbors.
While Hong Kongers scramble to quell Chinese anger (“Of course you can pee in the street! How silly of us.”) Macau-ren are surely leaning back behind the good side of the backgammon table, watching some Beijingers gleefully piss away their savings.
