Holiday fails to warm up local market

Hong Kong's travel industry continues to suffer from a winter chill, with even the week-long Spring Festival Holiday failing to warm it up.

Only 120 mainland tour groups visited Hong Kong per day during the holiday week, a drop of 70 percent compared to last year's figure of 380, Hong Kong Travel Industry Council Executive Director Joseph Tung Yiu-chung said over the weekend.

He said he believed it was the sharpest decrease in more than a decade, and predicted the situation was unlikely to improve in the short term.