Stormy Hong Kong weather blamed for slump in visitors to cable car
25pc drop in guests to Lantau attraction despite a revamp costing HK$80m
The stormy weather has been blamed for a slump in visitors to the Ngong Ping 360 cable car on Lantau, which reopened earlier this month after a five-month revamp.
Numbers to the Tung Chung attraction dropped 25 per cent between June 5 and 18, to 40,000, compared with the same period, managing director Stella Kwan Mun-yee said. She said the bad weather had put people off.
During that period the typhoon No 8 signal was raised once and there were several amber and yellow rainstorm warnings.
Kwan stressed the company had devoted a lot of effort into ensuring a reliable service, as shown by the 99.87 per cent reliability rate last year – meaning there was less than one minute of delay for every eight hours of operation.
Frederick Ma Si-hang, chairman of the MTR Corp, which owns the cable car operator, said the attraction was important to the city’s tourism sector.
“It was named by The Daily Telegraph as one of the 10 amazing cable car rides around the world. This is no easy feat,” he said.
