HONG KONG: The city will set up an Internet advice service in conjunction with neighbouring Guangdong Province for the coming golden-week holiday.

The aim is to provide would-be tourists coming to Hong Kong with advance data on congestion at the border and other issues.

An inter-departmental working group will help too in smoothing the influx of mainland tourists across the border during the National Day Golden Week starting October 1.

Eva Cheng, the commissioner for tourism, announced the two measures at a joint press conference held yesterday with members of the travel and hotel industries.

Residents of eight Guangdong cities got the green light last month to come to Hong Kong for sight-seeing without having to join tour groups. The Guangdong authorities are estimating that as many as 60,000 to 80,000 individual travellers will come to Hong Kong during the golden week, Cheng disclosed.

It is expected that total arrivals of mainlanders will exceed last year's 280,000 mark during the period.

The early-warning mechanism will provide information on the Internet on hotel bookings and numbers of people at the border so that mainland visitors can determine the best time to come to Hong Kong.

Hotel bookings will be posted on the Internet by Hong Kong Hotels Association while the volume of cross-border human flow will be released by the Immigration Department on the web, Cheng said.

The government will set up an inter-departmental task force to co-ordinate and map out measures to enhance the flow of visitors through border checkpoints, to bolster border transportation and to step up promotion and information dissemination to visitors on consumer protection and health issues.

"The objective of the exercise is to ensure that Hong Kong is well prepared in all respects to receive our visitors and enhance their travel experience in the city," Cheng said.

"Individual visitors are advised to plan their trips early and book transportation and hotel accommodation in advance, especially during the peak season," she added.

From October 1 to 4, all mainland tours will be required to enter Hong Kong through the better-equipped Lowu checkpoint to lessen the burden of Lok Ma Chau, said Henry Siu Chung-kit, assistant director of immigration.

The Immigration Department will deploy an additional 330 officers to man border checkpoints and increase customs counters from 35 to 50.

Trains to Lowu will be running on a higher frequency, increasing from 10 to 14 an hour, carrying an hourly capacity of 52,000 passengers.

(HK Edition 09/19/2003 page1)