Times Square granted patrons two hours of free parking a day, which could be raised to a maximum of seven hours with spending.

Harbour City, Hong Kong’s largest shopping centre with more than 2,000 car park spaces, is offering five hours a day of free parking and up to 10 hours if customers spend at the mall or restaurants, a promotion unseen since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, in 2003.

The Post found that motorists queuing along Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui waited between 15 and 45 minutes for a space at Harbour City. Some drivers appeared to give up, having waited just five minutes.

Jewellery salesman Bharat Singh, 46, lined up for about half an hour in his convertible before he reached the car park entrance. He was trying to spend the holiday around Tsim Sha Tsui with his two daughters, he said.

“It is a good perk,” he said. “The location is very convenient, and you are free from worries you have to go back and refer to the meter every hour if you park your car on the street.”

Singh said they would have lunch in the mall to claim the full 10-hour free parking before going to Victoria Harbour. Five hours of parking costs up to HK$170 (US$22).

Retired teacher Lu Qiuhui, 63, who arrived from Nanjing in Jiangsu province on Friday, was waiting in the queue with his Hong Kong-based son to get into the car park.

He said his son had learned about the free parking on mainland Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu and that it was a good enticement because spaces were hard to find in commercial districts such as Tsim Sha Tsui and Central.

“We will spend the parking money on getting better food at the mall instead. Then, we will take the ferry to Central,” Luo said. “The wait has been smooth. And others line up patiently.”

A total of 795,610 people, mostly residents, left Hong Kong on Friday, while another 370,218 entered the city.

Back in 2018, a record year for tourism, 722,250 people left Hong Kong on Good Friday while 396,839 came in.

More than 580,000 Hongkongers leave city on first day of Easter holiday

Family of four Chris Yau, Ling Chan and their children, aged seven and nine, were among those making earlier cross-border trips on Saturday.

They arrived at Lo Wu before 9am to avoid the huge crowds. Chan said they started planning the three-day trip to Shanwei city in Guangdong province a month ago.

“It is the first time we are taking our daughter and son to Shanwei,” the housewife said. “The kids felt a bit bored staying in Hong Kong and wanted to go elsewhere.”

Chan said she and her husband, who works in finance, expected to spend about HK$4,000 for the trip, with around HK$2,000 of that on hotel expenses and the rest for dining as well as shopping for toys and souvenirs.

Housewife Mandy Wu and her 12-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son left their home in Mong Kok at about 8am to take the train to Lo Wu, where they joined two other families for a two-day trip to Shenzhen.

Wu, 37, said the 10 of them would visit some popular attractions such as theme parks Window of the World and Shenzhen Happy Valley, and she expected to spend between HK$2,000 and HK$3,000 for the trip plus about HK$400 on a hotel.

She added that despite visiting Shenzhen about a dozen times since the border reopened after the coronavirus pandemic, she was still enthusiastic about making the trips because of the lower prices and better service.

“Things are expensive in Hong Kong, while there are more choices in Shenzhen, and people there are nicer and have better service attitudes,” she said, adding that Shenzhen was a top destination to spend holidays for the family.

Hong Kong civil servants share lessons from mainland China exchange programme

Many Hongkongers also joined two- to three-day tours to Guangdong cities.

Social worker Bobo Cheng, 58, and her husband, together with five relatives, joined a two-day tour to Huizhou city, along with about 30 other Hongkongers, departing from the Shenzhen side of the Lo Wu border.

She said it had become a trend among her family and friends to visit and spend time in mainland cities during holidays, as Hong Kong was losing its “vibe” while there were many places of historical interest to visit across the border and unique local cuisine to savour.

“Hong Kong used to be a vibrant and lively city with its own characteristics, but it is losing its special vibe,” she said, adding that the government did little to stimulate local consumption.

“The government mainly focused on attracting mainland and foreign tourists to Hong Kong, but did not do much to encourage local residents to stay and spend money in the city,” Cheng said, calling for more activities and concerts to reverse the growing trend of cross-border trips among Hongkongers.

Hundreds of Hong Kong trekkers head to Shenzhen for free guided hike

Vicky Tsim, who manages tour guides at Hong Kong travel agency Yummy Holiday, said 80 tours, each made of about 40 Hongkongers, left on Saturday for Guangdong cities. Two hundred tours departed the day before.

The most popular destinations included Guangzhou, Zhaoqing and Huizhou, and the tours charged from HK$299 up to more than HK$1,000 each person, she said.

Tsim said the number of Hongkongers joining tours over the Easter holiday was double that of last year. She added that more people were also signing up for longer trips to other mainland destinations such as Fujian province and Guilin city.

Hongkongers who travelled to Shenzhen on Saturday included those who went tomb-sweeping ahead of the Ching Ming Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday honouring the deceased, which will fall on Thursday this year.

The Immigration Department earlier estimated that visitors and residents would make 11 million inbound and outbound trips over the holiday weekend and Ching Ming Festival.