Eateries starting to host tour groups despite uncertainties

A seafood restaurant on Lamma Island is one of the first to express interest in hosting inbound tour groups under updated Covid-19 measures.

Eight other Chinese restaurants were also interested, a catering group said, but uncertainties over the measures had affected the industry’s confidence.

Carol Pak, a spokeswoman for the Lamma Rainbow Seafood Restaurant, said she had agreed to host incoming tour groups after a travel agency approached her.

“We are at an outlying island with an outdoor area, which I think is a better environment,” she said. “It won’t be too hard for us to make arrangements.”

Her restaurant was big enough to set aside a third of the space for tour groups, and this was also a business opportunity, she added.

Under the “0+3” regime, inbound arrivals undergo three days of medical surveillance, barring them from premises including bars and restaurants.

The government relaxed the rules for group tours last month, allowing them to dine at designated venues and enter premises offering mask-on activities.

Restaurants interested in hosting tour groups must submit their floor plans to show they can separate the visitors from other patrons, and also ensure that staff undergo polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests every three days.

Fanny Yeung, executive director of the Travel Industry Council, said about 30 travel agencies had applied to bring in group tours as of Monday. Eight had registered for tours, mainly from Thailand, the Philippines and Taiwan.

She said an inbound tour from

Taiwan in early December would be the first allowed to dine-in at designated restaurants.

Pak said there were logistical problems in meeting the rules, especially frequent PCR tests for staff. Her employees would have to travel by boat to a testing centre at Aberdeen during working hours as there was no testing centre on Lamma Island, she said, adding that this meant additional costs.

Pak was also unsure if she would have to set aside separate toilets for tour groups, although she thought this was impractical. She said before the pandemic, 80 per cent of her customers were tourists from the mainland, Europe and the United States.

She was contacted by British expatriate Amy Overy, who runs private tour organiser Hong Kong Greeters. Overy said she was seeking approval from the Travel Industry Council for her dine-in plans on Lamma, but had no luck persuading other restaurants to accommodate her visitors.

“I think if you have a good relationship with the restaurants, they are probably more willing [to help]. I just don’t have the connections,” she said.

Catering industry leaders complained that the process of obtaining approval for venues to host travel groups led by licensed tour guides was too cumbersome and not financially attractive.

Yeung Wai-sing, president of the Association for Hong Kong Catering Services Management, said eight Chinese restaurants had expressed a preliminary interest in accepting tour groups. But they were a minority and he believed they were keen only because “business is hard to come by”.

Yeung said the policies were not clear enough. For example, tour groups and regular customers would inevitably use the same entrance. “One entrance could be used to enter multiple restaurants, some people may see amber code people coming in and out, then worry that their business will be affected,” he said.

“The restaurants need to segregate the tour groups, but does it also mean our staff must wash the bowls and utensils separately? How is that possible?”

Yeung said visitors would also have to follow their tour operator’s directions, which could lead to an unhappy experience.

We are at an outlying island with an outdoor area, which … is a better environment

CAROL PAK, LAMMA RAINBOW SEAFOOD RESTAURANT