Hong Kong ‘golden week’ tourist hits and misses: nicer workers, e-payment poor

Some mainland Chinese tourists visiting Hong Kong during the Labour Day “golden week” holiday have expressed surprise at improvements in service attitudes but believe the city’s e-payment system could be better.

They said waiters and waitresses were no longer rude while serving and spoke better Mandarin after notoriously impolite restaurant staff, shop workers and taxi drivers triggered a ‘Let’s go the Extra Mile’ campaign by the Tourism Board to educate industry players last year.

The city welcomed more than 682,000 mainland Chinese tourists between Thursday and Saturday, the first three days of the five-day Labour Day golden week break. Arrival numbers on Friday set a post-pandemic single-day record.

Tourist Edison Wu, 27, was among Friday’s record 267,000 mainland arrivals and said he was happy to see a more welcoming attitude from the catering industry.

“The attitude of restaurant bosses and staff has been much better than before. They take our orders patiently, and they are not that annoyed when there are language barriers,” Wu, who is spending four days in the city with his family, said on Sunday.

“But there are too many tourists … The overall experience is not that great, as many places have long queues. It is inconvenient to go around the city as streets and public transport are too crowded.”