Mourners queue along a road as they wait to pay their respects at the memorial service for Alex Chow, 22, who died last month from head injuries sustained during a fall inside a multi-storey carpark where police and protesters were clashing, at Po Fook Hi
Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. Executive Director Adam Kwok called on Hong Kong’s government to help the hotel sector as the city’s economy sags under months-long pro-democracy protests.
"We strongly urge the government to help the hotel industry,” Kwok said in a rare public address Friday. "We really need it.”
Kwok was speaking at the media launch for a new Sun Hung Kai property, Alva Hotel by Royal. He said hotel revenue for the company as a group had fallen by as much as 40% in November and December due to the unrest. This half, hotel revenue is forecast to be down around 30%.
Hong Kong’s economy is expected to enter its first annual recession in a decade. Tourists have stayed away from the city in droves -- arrivals from mainland China were down 35% in September compared with the same month of 2018, and the hotel occupancy rate averaged 63%. Retail sales have also plunged.
Kwok said authorities should refer to the stimulus policies employed during the 2003 SARS epidemic.
Asked as to why Sun Hung Kai was going ahead with the opening, Kwok said the hotel had been in the pipeline for a long time. Total investment for Alva Hotel by Royal is around HK$2.8 billion ($359 million).
"We are in a difficult time but we give our full heart to operate,” he said. "With this hotel, we are offering good quality at a very affordable price. People will come.”
Sun Hung Kai, Hong Kong’s biggest developer, isn’t forcing staff to take unpaid leave, or laying employees off, Kwok said.
"Hong Kong and mainland China will continue to be our focus of investment,” he said. "I’m confident about the future of Hong Kong. People will come back.”
Kwok is one of the next-in-line heirs for Sun Hung Kai. His grandfather Kwok Tak-seng, a grocery wholesaler from Guangdong, immigrated to Hong Kong after the war and co-founded the property developer in 1963. The patriarch’s three sons, Raymond, Walter, and Thomas, ran the family business after he passed away.
