Hong Kong investors think there’s money to be made shuttling travelers from one special administrative region to the other via the new Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.
One Bus and Kwoon Chung are among the companies licensed to run daily coach services between the two cities, reports the South China Morning Post. But limits on services and competition from shuttle buses could take a bite out of the businesses before they even start. Just one round trip per day per coach can travel between Hong Kong and Macau, with a total daily service of 50 coaches.
Nine investors are funding One Bus Hongkong Macau, spending HK$95 million on 19-bus luxury fleet. They have paid HK$1.6 million to HK$2 million for each bus and a license fee of more than HK$3 million per vehicle, the Post reported. The nine investors include Eternal East Cross-Border Coach, and two subsidiaries of KMB.
“We used the best materials and a sharp and dapper design for One Bus coaches, and we invested a lot of money in the fleet because we want to build a strong brand image for our company and offer a luxury experience for our customers,” said Au Shui-hing, deputy chairman of the Hong Kong Macau Cross Border Association. Each 53-seat luxury coach is equipped with five security cameras, free wifi and smartphone-charging facilities.
Presently, travelers who take a direct route from Hong Kong to Macau go on ferries. Another One Bus investor, Chan Man-keung, chairman of the Association of Taxi Industry Development, said many passengers “don’t like travelling by ferry due to seasickness.”
He and his fellow investors are apparently trusting that the limits on bus runs will be eased. “With only 19 coaches, we can carve out only a tiny percentage of market share, actually less than 1 percent. The Macau government stipulates that one coach can provide only one round trip per day, but actually a coach could run for five or six round trips daily. We hope the Macau government will relax this restriction, otherwise we will be running big losses.”
The new bridge is expected to open on July 1.
