Hong Kong's hotel occupancy will be 80 to 85 percent during the National Day holiday, James Lu, executive director of Hong Kong Hotels Association, said Friday.

Lu said that three-star and four-star hotels still have rooms available for visitors during the holiday.

Room price of the three-star hotels is around 400 Hong Kong dollars (US$51.28) per night, slightly lower from the same period of last year, Lu said.

Novotel Century Hong Kong, a four-star hotel, told Xinhua that its occupancy in the holiday will be 50 percent and room price is almost the same as last year. B.P. International House, a three-star hotel, said its occupancy is around 70 percent in the holiday.

So far, there are totally 50,000 hotel rooms in Hong Kong, of which, around 40,000 rooms are star-hotel rooms, while the others are non-star guesthouse rooms.

It is expected that 280,000 mainland residents will visit Hong Kong during the National Day holiday (from Oct 1 to 7).

Since the mainland relaxed the regulations for individual travelers to visit Hong Kong, local hotel occupancy has increased by 2 percent, said Lu.

He said that most of the individual tourists, who come from Guangdong, would like to choose to stay with their friends or relatives here, rather than check into hotels.

(People's Daily September 27, 2003)