Marcus Lum
Many of the 500 exhibitors at the Hong Kong Food Festival said sales dropped by as much as 50 percent amid the rush of locals to the mainland during the four-day Christmas break.
And this despite tasting being allowed for the first time since after the pandemic for the five-day event that ended yesterday at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Exhibitor Hui, selling Taiwanese snacks, said sales were halved compared to last year.
Hongkongers had either chosen to go to the mainland or other countries, so there were not as many visitors, he said.
There were also fewer young customers, who were our main target group, Hui added. He said he had to reduce the price of his products, some of them by half.
Hui said the main thing was to try to clear as much of the product as possible on the last day.
Another exhibitor, Chan, selling seafood, said sales dropped 30 to 40 percent.
She said several factors contributed to the decline.
”People travel to different places, the economy is not great and many people are out of work, so many are more cautious with how they spend their money,” she said.
Chan said young people had gone to other exhibitions rather than the Hong Kong Food Festival or traveled.
Chan’s stall offered a 5 to 10 percent discount on their products because most of the customers were elderly.
”The elderly would most likely go for cheaper products,” she said.
”The popular items for the elderly were soup or products for Lunar New Year like fish maw or abalone.”
A woman visitor surnamed Chan, who just came back from the mainland, said the organizer should have extended the event for a few more days so that people who went away during the Christmas holiday could come catch up.
She noticed too that this year’s festival had fewer attendees.
”The festival was packed last year. We couldn’t even walk. But this year, there was a lot of space,” Chan said.
Another woman, surnamed Kwan, said she decided to come to the exhibition on the last day to avoid queuing up and found the place to be so much less crowded.
”Me and my friends went to the event on the first day last year, and we had to queue up for some time,” she said.
”But this year, we could walk around freely, and we could buy a lot of items that we wanted.”
marcus.lum@singtaonewscorp.com
