Tourists enjoy the sunset at the West Kowloon Art Park with the Hong Kong Island skyline in the background on Dec 26, 2023. (SHAMIM ASHRAF / CHINA DAILY)

National legislators and political advisers from Hong Kong have joined a chorus calling for measures to attract tourists, proposing an increase in duty-free allowances and an expansion of multiple-entry permits for Chinese mainland visitors, during this year’s two sessions.

As middle and high-end consumer groups among mainland tourists tend to choose destinations outside the mainland, the duty-free shopping limit for mainland tourists visiting Hong Kong should be raised to 30,000 yuan ($4,167) from the current 5,000 yuan, said Stanley Ng Chau-pei, a Hong Kong deputy to the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature.

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Emphasizing that the tourism industry is one of the traditional pillars of Hong Kong’s economy, Ng said a boost for the sector could drive the coordinated development of the city’s service, transportation, and retail sales, creating a large number of job opportunities.

Mainland visitors accounted for nearly 80 percent of Hong Kong’s inbound tourists last year. Out of around 34 million visitors to the city during 2023, approximately 26.5 million were from the mainland, according to official data.

Starting from Wednesday, the expanded Individual Visit Scheme will come into effect, allowing people from Xi’an in Shaanxi province and Qingdao in Shandong province to visit Hong Kong individually. The move has brought the total number of IVS cities to 51.

The IVS program, which was implemented in 2003, allows eligible residents of designated mainland cities to apply for an endorsement to visit Hong Kong as individuals rather than by joining tour groups.

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Starry Lee Wai-king, a Hong Kong member of the Standing Committee of the NPC, said the current duty-free limit of 5,000 yuan is a far cry from meeting mainland tourists’ shopping demands, which could weaken the city’s competitiveness.

She also suggested that Hong Kong and the mainland can streamline the visa application process in order to boost people-to-people exchanges.

Henry Tang Ying-yen, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the nation’s top political advisory body, this year proposed to reinstate the multiple-entry permit program for Shenzhen residents and extend it to other cities within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.