The Tourism Commission apologized for the inconvenience caused to tourists who were evicted from a hotel closed suddenly on Wednesday evening and pledged to improve communication with the judiciary.

The Tatami Hampton Hotel in Yau Ma Tei was sealed by court bailiffs after it failed to settle a loan with the Bank of East Asia.

The incident has severely damaged the tourism industry and sparked calls for tighter regulation on hotels, a travel industry representative said.

A notice has been put up at the entrance of the Tatami Hampton Hotel announcing the closure of the hotel and the arrangement of a community center to accommodate the evicted guests. Edmond Tang


Meanwhile, Commissioner for Tourism Au King-chi made a public apology over the incident yesterday.

"We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to the tourists by the execution of a court order by the judiciary," Au said.

The saga started at about 2pm on Wednesday when court bailiffs ordered about 100 guests of the hotel to leave. The guests refused and called for police assistance. The Consumer Council was informed of the incident by the police and offered assistance. Two hotel associations in Hong Kong disseminated hotel vacancy information to the guests at around 6pm.

But the Tourism Commission was not informed of the incident until 8pm.

"It is the first time for the judiciary to seal off a hotel. We are not experienced in handling the matter and not familiar with what preparatory steps should be taken. There is room for improvement," Au said.

She added the judiciary has pledged to inform the Tourism Commission earlier should there be similar cases in future, so that the commission will have time to set up help desks in the hotel and provide assistance to guests.

The government opened the Henry G. Leong Community Centre, which is used to provide shelter for the homeless under poor weather conditions, for the guests. But none of them spent the night there.

The board's executive director Anthony Lau said a free half-day city tour will be given to the affected guests as compensation.

The government is still working with the hotel licensee to track down customers who have made reservations with the hotel and have yet to arrive.

A spokesman for the hotel said it was fully booked for the coming days.

Meanwhile, some tourists were unaware of the incident and arrived at the hotel for check-in yesterday.

One of them, Marc from France, was transferred to Hotel 36 near the Prince Edward train station. He was offered free accommodation for one night.

"I am not so upset," he said.

But Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners executive director Michael Li said the incident has damaged Hong Kong's reputation in terms of its service quality.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board has set up a hotline (9536 4525) for the affected tourists.