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HONG KONG: People using Hong Kong as a hub for evacuation from disaster-stricken Japan may need to turn to other regional centres because of a shortage of hotel rooms.
Many hotel rooms in Hong Kong have already been booked for the popular Rugby Sevens event from Mar 25-27 and commercial aircraft charterer Air Charter Service has urged evacuees to divert to other cities such as Singapore and Bangkok.
"We have been evacuating people from Japan for several days," Gavin Copus, Asia Pacific chief executive for Air Charter Service, told Reuters on Friday, Mar 18. "One issue facing people coming here is firstly hotel rooms, and transfer flights are also very busy to other destinations."
One of Air Charter Service's first charters was for a high-tech manufacturing company from Japan with about 300 people, including employees and their families.
"We brought them to Hong Kong in order to continue their business and they took a lot of hotel rooms," Copus said.
Four Seasons Hong Kong, a five-star hotel in the city's business centre, said it was fully booked on Friday and mostly booked for the next few days.
Mandarin Oriental and the East hotel also said the vacancy situation would be very tight over the next few days.
Most people evacuated from Japan are using Hong Kong as a hub to fly on to Europe and the United States.
Air Charter Service would have six Boeing 747s stand by for the next few days with 450 seats each, Copus said.
In Seoul, an official in charge of sales at Grand Hilton said, "We are receiving a lot of enquiries from European airlines in particular, about room availability for their crews.
"It seems airlines are reluctant to have their crews stay in Japan, and are opting for South Korea due to its geographical proximity," said the official, who declined to be named because she is not authorised to speak to the media. — Reuters
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