Macau bogeyman used to scare Hong Kong

I was in Macau again yesterday. Things continue to move ahead at great pace there. The boxes are in at the offices of the Venetian team who will be moving into their new building soon. The opening is looming.

And the scare stories are running in Hong Kong again, this time being enthusiastically promoted by those who want to demolish the Wanchai sports centre and/or lose the nearby bus station and build a Phase 3 of the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre.

"Hong Kong is in urgent need of new exhibition and convention facilities to fend off growing competition from Macau and nearby cities", screams the property section of the South China Morning Post (sorry, behind the subscriber door...and more on the sins of the SCMP in a minute).

Michael Li, the executive director of the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, is quoted as saying that "his group planned to form a strategic alliance with other concerned parties to call for the development of phase three of Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre". Doyen of the Hong Kong exhibition industry Stanley Chu is a bit more sanguine (and right in my opinion) when he says "the threat from Macau is not imminent".

I would have thought Michael Li would be better off focusing his attention his attention on his members' penchant for knocking down hotels and turning them into more profitable office blocks. Hong Kong has lost the Hilton, the Furama, and the Hyatt Regency in recent years and the Ritz Carlton, a 15 year old building, is due to close for demolition at the end of this year.

Now to the SCMP's sins...not only do they enclose most of their material behind a subscriber's only firewall, but now they impose on their paying subscribers pop-up advertising links within the editorial. Paul Conley has been campaigning vigourously against this is the US. I fear there's no hope in Asia where editorial and ethical standards cruise along at rock bottom to start with.