Your Ref:
Our Ref:
Date: 5 August 1993
J Ashton, Esq
Deputy Political Adviser
Political Adviser's Office
Hong Kong
Dea John,
GROUP TOURS FROM CHINA
RESTRICTED
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
270-2655
A
026/6
RECEIV
STRY
Aut 1993
DESK C INCLX
FEGISTRY
PA
tion Taken
1. Thank you for your letter of 14 July about the retent group tours review meeting. I do indeed recall participating in them when I was in Hong Kong. I appreciate the wish to keep down unnecessary expenditure, and I do realise that there was rarely enough business to justify the meeting being any longer. However I am a little sad that it has been decided to cut out the visits. As you know it is difficult for the Embassy to find time for visits to the provinces, and those that occur are, for obvious reasons unlikely to include southern China. We therefore suffer from something of a dearth of reporting on these areas. I hope that it will be possible for you or Bob Peirce to find some reasons to pay visits to parts of Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian other than Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It might for example be of value for someone from the PA's Office to visit Beihai in connection with the ECVIIS? The advantage of the Group tours of course that as the Hong Kong side were normally bringing goodies with them ie increased numbers of tours, there was usually no difficulty in obtaining reasonable access.
2. I know it is none of my business, but I am a little surprised that Immigration Department are still taking the view that Group Tours are something to be tolerated at best. In the past I accept that most group tourists were funded by Hong Kong relatives. But is that still the case? I would have thought that with increased affluence on the mainland they could now be treated like other tourists ie something to be encouraged. If so the objection that there are insufficient Immigration Department resources to cope with increased numbers is not really a valid one. I know that on the whole it is mainland companies that make the most of these visitors (eg they have to stay in Guangdong Travel operated
Would that not be resolved if the market was opened
Hotels).
RESTRICTED
FILE