HONG KONG: For the second year in a row, Hong Kong’s Ocean Park recorded a loss coupled with a drop in attendance, which the theme park blamed on the city’s recent retail and tourism downturn.
The Southern District attraction also announced a 9 per cent admission fee increase on Wednesday, taking effect on New Year’s Day, to “maintain competitiveness”.
The HK$234.4 million deficit in the financial year ending on June 30 was slightly lower than the loss of HK$241.1 million the year before, but attendance figures dropped 4.03 per cent to 5.8 million. Revenue remained unchanged at HK$1.61 billion. From January 1, entrance fees will be raised to HK$480 for adults and HK$240 for children.
“The loss is mainly due to the market environment, as well as peripheral factors, which the park has been striving to combat alongside industry peers and the retail sector,” Ocean Park chairman Leo Kung Lin-cheng said.
Kung added that he was encouraged by tourism figures going forward, highlighting increased growth in the number of frequent individual travellers from the mainland and regional markets such as Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and South Korea.
In a bid to boost local attendance, Ocean Park is rolling out a basket of offers including birthday discounts for locals and free nighttime admission during the Christmas and New Year holidays.
In the first 10 months of this year, Hong Kong’s tourist arrivals grew 2.7 per cent to 47.91 million, according to the latest Tourism Board statistics. The figures declined in 2015 and 2016.
