However, NH's newly-appointed president and chief executive officer, Kichisaburo Nomura, said the dramatic downturn in Japanese visits to Hong Kong was expected to be short-lived.
"We see this downturn of Japanese visitors to Hong Kong as temporary," Nomura told TravelNews. "We believe the level of visitors will regain eventually and we are co-ordinating our sales and marketing efforts to achieve that."
Although NH's market share to Hong Kong for the six months to September 1997 has been less than 1996's, the market decline - 54 per cent or about 200,000 passengers - has been slightly less. But JAL director of public relations, Geoffrey Tudor, said while business traffic had held up, tourist sales had plummeted by as much as 65 per cent.
Tudor said said widespread press reports of hotels allegedly charging the Japanese three time more for rooms than other Hong Kong guests had contributed to the traffic decline. Another problem was that many hotels this year had introduced a five-day minimum stay rule for the Japanese market.
"That's too long for the typical Japanese tourist," Tudor said. "The Japanese view Hong Kong as a very short haul destination - they just want to get in there for three days, do their shopping and go home."
ANA executive vice president Koji Yamashita said hotel over-charging was a major problem.