Saturday, March 01, 2008

Joined Up Government, or does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

Two recent stories from the South China Morning Post website:

  • 23 February - "Hotel sites likely to be on offer in next land-sale list
    The former home for juveniles in Kowloon Tong and new hotel sites in North Point and Hung Hom were expected to be available on the upcoming land-sale list, government and property industry sources said."
  • 1 March - "Hotel development given priority on land sales list
    Hotel sites will be offered at lower trigger prices than commercial sites in the government's new land application list as a means of encouraging hotel development, the government said yesterday."

Perhaps I'm missing something, but if Hong Kong is so short of hotel rooms, how come we keep seeing perfectly serviceable existing hotels redeveloped for other purposes? Does it make any sense that the system allows the Furama, Hyatt Regency, Ritz Carlton etc. to be decommissioned when there is apparently such a hotel shortage that the government has to give incentives to encourage the building of more? Or am I being too logical?

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