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Survey Findings on Views about the Individual Visit Scheme Released by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at CUHK
A telephone survey was conducted from 24 to 26 February 2015 by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to gauge public views about the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS). 743 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 43.2%. The sampling error is + or –3.60% at a confidence level of 95%.
Major findings are summarized as follows:
In the current survey, while 16.3% of the 743 respondents agreed with recent protests against IVS visitors organized by some local people, over half (54.8%) showed disagreement. 26.2% reported “in-between”.
When the respondents were asked if they perceived that Hong Kong had no more capacity to receive the existing volume of Mainland visitors from IVS, over three-fifth (63.3%) of them agreed, 12.1% disagreed, and 21.3% said “in-between”.
Recently, there has been a strong voice for tightening up the IVS. While two-third (66.7%) of the respondents wanted to reduce the scope of IVS, 3.4% opted for an expansion. A quarter (25.1%) preferred no change. A follow-up question was posed to the former group about whether they would still want a reduction should negative impacts on retail, tourism, and related sectors be resulted. Among these 495 respondents, 89.7% did not change their original position and still hoped a reduction of IVS. 4.4% changed their mind and disagreed with any reduction given the potential negative effects.
Concerning the proposed revision of the IVS, 70.4% of the 742 respondents agreed that multiple-entry permit arrangement currently applicable to Shenzhen registered residents should be cancelled, 7.1% disagreed, and 20.2% neither agreed nor disagreed.
In terms of the impacts of IVS on Hong Kong, nearly one-third (32.8%) of the respondents thought IVS as beneficial, 36.3% reported it as detrimental, and 28.0% believed that it brought both benefits and detriments. Overall, one-fifth (19.3%) of the respondents said IVS brought more benefits to themselves, 49.1% tended to believe that it caused more detriments, and 22.8% said “in-between”.
While over three-fifth (62.6%) of the respondents said that visitors under IVS brought inconvenience to their everyday lives, 35.3% reported they did not experience inconvenience. Among the former group of respondents, 34.0% reported a low level of inconvenience caused by IVS, 32.5% found a moderate level, and 33.5% expressed a high level.
When being asked if they agreed with the proposal of building a shopping centre at Lok Ma Chau for Mainland vistors to shop, 54.5% agreed, 19.8% disagreed, and 21.4% indicated “in-between”.
