Mainland Chinese Spending Less in Hong Kong

Here is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal's 5/30/12 issue regarding the slowing China economy and its effect on Hong Kong.

Randy Lynch, Kipling & Clark

The Wall Street Journal

 A Hong Kong Craze Cools
By Te-Ping Chen & Jason Chow

The flood of mainland Chinese shoppers coming to Hong Kong to snap up luxury goods, expensive homes, art and wine is slowing.

Earlier this month, the usual flocks of mainland tourists that fill the city during Golden Week, a Chinese holiday period, were conspicuously smaller.  Likewise, interest in local art auctions and real estate among mainland consumers flagged in the latest quarter.

In recent years, the number of mainland tourists crossing the border to shop and see sights in Hong Kong has ballooned to more than 23 million a year- quadruple the city's population.  They have given rise to blocks of glittering storefronts filled with luxury retailers eager to cater to such visitors.

Shifting economic winds are affecting the trend, though.  Growth on the mainland is easing, credit is getting tighter and more people are worried about the global economy.  Some Chinese tourists, meanwhile, are simply going elsewhere.

Still, it can be a painful shift.  Last week Tiffany & Co., citing softening growth in China, among other factors, said its net sales would grow 7% to 8% this year, down from a previously expected 10%.  The jewelry retailer, which has 19 stores in mainland China and 10 in Hong Kong, said same-store Asian-Pacific sales rose 10% in the year's first three months, compared with 26% during the same period last year.

Overall growth in visits from mainland tourists to Hong Kong has been "decelerating quite sharply" in recent months, says Credit Suisse analyst Gabriel Chan.  The number of Hong Kong-bound mainland Chinese visitors in the first quarter rose 17% from a year earlier, USB says.

It isn't all a reflection of the economy.  Nine years after mainland China first began granting individual visas for mainland Chinese to visit the city, Hong Kong is no longer such an exotic destination.  "Instead of going to Hong Kong to shop four times a year, why not save money and go to Korea or Japan once?" Mr. Chan says.

In Hong Kong's turbocharged real-estate market, where Chinese have increasingly bought up the most expensive properties, their share of sales of new offerings fell to 37% of the market in the first quarter from 38% in last year's fourth quarter, according to Midland Holdings, a real-estate agency.  For sales of previously owned homes, 8.4% of the total in dollar terms were purchases by Chinese mainland buyers, falling from 15.6%.