The often divided Legislative Council did the unusual in passing on May 30th by a 42-3-1 margin a Liberal Party motion to ease the way for mainland visitors and investors. The Tourist Board, to its credit, promptly asked to have the daily quota of 1,500 travelers from the mainland either scrapped or raised to 2,000, which will happen from September 1st. The government on Friday launched an $18 billion program to beautify every district for tourism. Just last week Financial Secretary Antony Leung went to Beijing to discuss with the Central Government a range of issues - tourism and investment prominent among them. Both sides are now ironing out the details on multiple entry visas for businessmen and reduced hassles for tourists.

All this is heartening if not for the Central Government complaining to Mr. Leung about mainland tourists being ripped off or discriminated against in Hong Kong. The abuse of visitors blackens our reputation, casts a shadow over our relations with the mainland as well as sabotages the hard and expensive promotion of our "City of Life". What counts is not the hospitality we pledge but the hospitality we deliver. We have to make the word of mouth work for rather than against Hong Kong.

I am aggrieved but not surprised by the contempt that some of our people - and not only merchants - show to our compatriots. We all have a bank of memories about rude relatives from the "home" villages, their uncouth manners and demands on our generosity (also known as "obligations"). While China has changed, bias, maybe even bigotry, has not as our Chinese media, reflecting our prejudices, continue to caricature mainlanders as "simpletons", "hicks", and "bumpkins".
Stories circulating on the mainland now about Hong Kong cheaters are perhaps exaggerated but these are nonetheless gaining credence by their repetition. Chastened visitors talk about surly clerks who reserve their smiles for other customers, about having inferior goods fobbed on them for high prices, the switching of camera lenses, the passing of 18-K jewelry as pure gold and such sundry gouging. These cases, while isolated, portray Hong Kong as a grabbing, pushy place, a stereotype that some of our workers in the tourist trade have done little to dispel.

Morally the mistreatment of visitors is repugnant and legally overcharging is tantamount to fraud or theft. Financially this can be ruinous because mainlanders are our most numerous patrons. Back in 1998, when the mainland tourist boom began, some 2.7 million of them visited, increasing to 3.2 million in 1999, 3.8 million in 2000 and a projected four million for this year. They now constitute a third of our visitors and a ratio that could well increase as rising standard of living equipped more mainlanders for travel and the recession convinced those from Europe, North America, Australia, Japan and elsewhere in Asia to stay away.

Whether some of us appreciate this, economically our future hinges on prosperity in our homeland that is poised to join the World Trade Organization later this year. China registered an annualized 7.9 per cent growth rate for the first half of 2001 and 93 per cent of that boost came not from exports but from surging domestic demand. We are witnessing and benefiting from the emergence of a mainland middle class, which in the first six months of this year bought 345,000 private cars, a 30.7 per cent rise from the same period in 2000. Local investments, which have soared by over 15 per cent in the first half of 2001, will sustain the growth initially fueled by foreign capital. Mainland property sales rose by 28.2 per cent in contrast to the stagnant real estate market in Hong Kong.

As the mainland Chinese live better and earn more, they aspire to experience the world, both close to and far from home. This wanderlust is reflected in the statistics. The Chinese authorities registered 450 billion reminbi (HK$420 billion) in domestic tourism and tourists related revenue. Of this amount, locals visiting other mainland sites generated more than two thirds of the receipt or 330 billion reminbi. Hong Kong nowadays is not unrivaled as a Chinese destination for it must vie with the glittering likes of Shanghai and Guangzhou, let alone the capital Beijing now preparing for the Olympic Games, to attract mainland tourists who are becoming more discerning.

Many Chinese from the north are frustrated at the difficulty of visiting Hong Kong where they remain suspect. They say it seems easier for them to jet to Los Angeles for Disney theme parks than to cross the border into the Special Administrative Region that is to build a Disney replica in Penny Bay. Surveys among Chinese travelers place France and the United States as choice destinations and not Hong Kong. Throughout the region countries are wooing the mainland visitors who find that they are valued in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia with their large ethnic Chinese populations.

Not only is Hong Kong sometimes unfriendly to mainland visitors, it is also expensive. Fare and fees alone for a typical train journey from nearby Guangdong Province to Hong Kong cost around $1,500. The same traveler can fly to Bangkok and stay for five days and nights at a hotel for a comparable amount during the off season. We have to do more to bring in tourist business because we cannot continue to assume or take for granted mainland patronage.

Our government can help our tourist trade compete for China's custom by lifting restrictions and waiving some fees but it cannot, on its own, change public attitude manifest in the shoddy treatment of visitors from the mainland. Here only we can help ourselves by according travelers equal respect and by educating our youngsters not to discriminate. We must open our city and our hearts to our visitors not only because we desire their patronage but also because we are courteous and civil. There is a saying -- "the customer is always right" -- and our potential customers through tourism are the mainland Chinese.

What the government can also do, though, is to try even harder to entice mainland individuals to immigrate and invest in Hong Kong. Their renting or buying of offices, locating executives here, and recruiting our workers will not only boost our economy but also forge a perfect partnership between the mainland, with its vast market, and the territory, with its financial expertise, savvy and cosmopolitan flair.

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