11/08/2019 16:59

Hong Kong has been temporarily closed

[IMG=18062-3460] The situation around Hong Kong visa processing (see news from 11/10), according to information received by a BANKO correspondent on the 13th of October during interviews with operators, has taken a new course. It turned out that the order from Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs about increasing the number of documents needed for receiving a visa and prolonging the terms of visa processing does not only concern Moscow. ‘Worldwide operators faced similar problems,’ said Dmitry Gora, a head of South-East Asian department of ‘Moscow tour bureau’. ‘I talked with my partners from the UK and they also complain about it.’ Operators also said that on the 12th of October the documents were accepted at the Consulate. ‘We submitted documents for two people,’ said Andrey Surikov, the senior manager of Chinese department of ‘Express-line’. ‘The Consulate staff refused many people quite quickly, so the queue moved fast.’ According to eyewitnesses, having discovered that visa processing will take from one month, some people just turned round and walked away. Curiously enough, experts already refuse to call the situation toughening of rules, choosing a sterner wording: chaos. It is easy to understand them. When accepting the documents, the staff of the diplomatic mission would say literally: ‘We will send them for approval to Hong Kong. When we know something, we will contact you.’ It would usually take a week for processing Hong Kong visas. Naturally with all terms being urgent and clients being anxious, it is tour operators that will have to be responsible, because Chinese embassy fails to give official explanations. However, as market players informed, the Consulate promised to send official letter with explanations to all travel companies on the 14th of October. ‘According to preliminary information from the Consulate, holiday-makers should go to the immigration service of Hong Kong themselves, possibly with the assistance of the Consulate,’ says Surikov. ‘Basically the Chinese diplomatic representative office declined responsibility for terms of visa processing.’ What is more, no comments were given to BANKO at the Consulate. The Chinese tour office referred to the absence of any information. In the opinion of the leading players on the market, the authorities of Hong Kong seemed to temporarily close the city, clearing it from strangers. This way, information about increased security measures in the city is being implicitly confirmed.