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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
After Chinese films produced locally, films from the United States predominate in the Hong Kong cinemas. Records of the Panel of Film Censors show that 274 American feature films were submitted for censorship during 1958, as well as 61 British and 129 from France, India, Italy, Germany, Japan, the U.S.S.R. and China.
TOURIST DEVELOPMENT
During 1958 a steady stream of tourists continued to visit the Colony by sea and air. Hong Kong has the fewest possible entry formalities, good transport services (which will be improved still further when the new Airport has been completed), shopping facilities unrivalled in the Far East and scenery of great natural beauty.
The deficiency in hotel accommodation was met to a consider- able extent during the year although there is still a shortage of first-class rooms. At the beginning of 1958 there were approxi- mately 1,582 hotel rooms available; during the year seven hotels were completed and two extended, providing an additional 829 rooms for visitors.
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The Hong Kong Tourist Association, incorporated by Ordinance in 1957, co-ordinates and promotes the Colony's tourist industry. 'It has the full support of the Government, which is providing sub- stantial financial assistance during the early stages of the Associa- tion's work. The Association has a Board of Management, with nine members broadly representative of the main sections of the industry, the Government and business generally, and an Executive Director, who took up his duties early in 1958.
The Association's main premises, consisting of offices and an Information Bureau, situated in the Peninsula Hotel Arcade in Kowloon, were opened in June; a subsidiary Information Bureau on Hong Kong Island, at the entrance to the Star Ferry piers, was opened in September.
The Association's first year has been spent in the recruitment and training of staff; the assembly of a mass of information about Hong Kong, designed to meet the many questions asked by visitors; and the production of special publicity material which by the end of the year had been distributed to some 3,240 main travel agents and businesses connected with travel in other countries.