This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Hong Kong's share of tourists from the Chinese mainland is predicted to drop to 27 percent by 2020, down from a peak of 42 percent in 2012.
Brokerage firm CLSA conducted a survey with 400 tourists from the mainland. The survey found that the tourists are attaching greater importance to experiencing foreign cultures when choosing holiday destinations.
Aaron Fischer, an official from CLSA says this partially explained the shift away from Hong Kong, which is primarily viewed as a shopping destination.
Fischer says when people travel to these other places, the impressions they're having are quite positive, particularly when it comes to the environment or experience of foreign culture. And for the most part, people are visiting these other countries to experience the culture not just shopping.
The official says Hong Kong still has capacity constraints, with occupancy rates in hotels still at a high level despite the economic slowdown. He also identified a lack of new attractions and widely reported tensions between some locals and mainland tourists as other obstacles the city was facing.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Taiwan has become one of the most popular travel destinations for mainland residents during the winter holiday season thanks to an increase in the quota allowed for tour groups.
The island's tourism authority has raised the daily quota from 5,000 people to 8,000 between November and February to cope with the growing demand for travel during the Spring Festival, the lunar New Year.
The authority raised the quota for tour groups several times in 2014 and allowed visits by tourists from more mainland regions. Residents in 47 mainland cities can now visit Taiwan as individual tourists.
As cooperation has strengthened between the two sides, cross-Straits tourism has boomed in recent years. Last year, more than 4 million mainland tourists visited Taiwan, surpassing those from Japan to become the biggest spenders.
