The Impact of Implementation of 'Individual Visit Scheme' Policy on Prices of Street Level Retail Shops in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is regarded as one of the most fantastic shopping paradise for tourists. Retailing is a major economic activity here and highly correlated with tourism industry. Implementation of Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) policy since July, 2003 which allows Mainland China citizens to visit Hong Kong on an individual base has significantly increased proportion of tourist shoppers and affects greatly on retail property. Based on 635 transaction record of the street-level retail shops between 1991 and 2011 in Hong Kong, and with the use of hedonic price model, this study examines hedonic attributes that affect this specific retail property type and also makes use of the IVS event to analyze and evaluate the changes in the implicit prices of certain attributes. The empirical study shows positive correlation between increase of tourist shopper and retail property price, and strongly supports our hypothesis.