Picturesque natural scenery, cheaper bargains as well as a whole new experience have prompted Filipino domestic helper Afolin Candaza to head to mainland China again and again.
The 41-year-old, who has worked in Hong Kong for 10 years, has joined three day-trip group tours taking helpers to neighbouring Guangdong province since August of last year.
Candaza said she was eager to explore the mainland during her weekly day off on Sunday as she had already travelled Hong Kong extensively. She added that an increasing number of her friends, who also worked as helpers in the city, had been venturing across the border.
Like their Hong Kong employers, a growing number of foreign domestic helpers in the city have been crossing the border to spend – a trend that picked up after the border reopening last year following years-long coronavirus pandemic.
The last trip Candaza joined in February took her and a group of more than 30 helpers, mostly from the Philippines, to the Yinxian resort in Dongguan, her second time there.
They gathered at 7.30am at the Lo Wu checkpoint and took a two-hour bus ride to the destination, a resort offering natural scenery and amusement rides.
She had a thrilling time walking on a glass bridge, experienced the chill of artificial snow, and had a blast riding a roller coaster and a bumper car. The group returned to Hong Kong at around 8.30pm.
The tour package included a group visa, lunch meal, tour guide, bus ride, insurance and entrance fees, and cost HK$350 (US$45) per person. Candaza said she spent about HK$300 more on street food, snacks and souvenirs.
“The trips were nice and they opened a whole new experience to me. I’m eager to explore mainland China more,” she said.
She added that she planned to take her daughter, a 20-year-old university student who would visit her in Hong Kong later this month, on one of the mainland trips.
There are more than 338,000 foreign domestic helpers in the city, most from the Philippines and Indonesia.
If they want to go over the border on their own, they must be accompanied by their employers. But joining group tours offers another option. Helpers said travel agencies helped them apply for a group visa which took about three days to process and without the need of a guarantor.
Leynie Lascano, 35 and a domestic helper from the Philippines, joined a group of more than 40 helpers on a day trip to the Window of the World, a theme park in Shenzhen in September last year.
She said she was encouraged to join the trip by her friends, who spread stories of their pleasant traveling experience among helper groups.
Lascano said she enjoyed touring the attraction which featured replicas of more than 100 world landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower.
She took photos and videos of her and friends at many of the reproductions of the landmarks, and posted them on her social media account, which drew comments from other helpers who expressed interest in visiting.
“I want to explore traveling to different places where we can go sightseeing, visiting beautiful sites and experiencing a different culture,” she said.
Lascano, also a mother of two sons, said she was eager to visit more mainland cities. She was saving money and planning to join a tour to Beijing and visit the Great Wall of China later.
The growing interest in exploring the mainland among helpers has boosted the business of travel agencies offering low-fare day trips across the border.
Filipino Rizza Mae Zorilla Zubiaga, 30, and a former helper, now works part-time for a travel agency organising the city’s helpers to join mainland tours, after she went on such trips herself while working in Hong Kong last year.
She said she had seen more helpers signing up for the tours since the border reopening. She brought about 10 to 20 helpers to join the day trips every Sunday or every other Sunday, and there were more on public holidays.
Like her, many were impressed by the tourist attractions, food, cheap bargains as well as hospitality of local people across the border, she added.
“I can see how [mainland] China looks like, although I just traveled a part [of it],” she said.
Given the growing demand, local agency C&C Express Travel launched a new mainland HK$450 day-tour to Qingyuan city in northern Guangdong in May targeting helpers.
The agency also offers another three mainland day trips for helpers, with two in Shenzhen and one in Dongguan, charging between HK$350 and HK$450.
Darian Corpuz, owner and managing director of the travel agency established in 2009 and targeting mainly Filipinos, said the strong momentum had stayed, with about 50 helpers joining the trips each Sunday.
She added that more than 400 helpers joined the tours with each group including 100 members over this year’s Lunar New Year holiday.
“After the pandemic, a lot of them are so interested to travel even for one day to unwind,” she said, adding that her agency ramped up advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
“They found it was so cheap there and they also wanted to experience it because their employers also went to mainland China.”
