When Jiang Zhengdong held the award of “Best Abroad Travel Agency of 2011”, he could barely squeeze out a bitter smile for the camera. Last year had really not been very good to him and left him with little satisfaction. “We had an awful year in 2011. The business was just terrible compared with what it was in 2010,” said Jiang. Jiang is manager of Public Relations for the China Travel Agency (Gangdong) at its branch in Shaoguan city. His work is attracting Hong Kong tourists to Shaoguan.

The award of recognition was shared with two other Hong Kong registered travel agencies in Shaoguan, Hong Kong Hong Thai Travel Agency and Wing on Travel. They were honored for their promotion of Danxia Mountain, a local principal tourist attraction. Thanks to their work, some 3.49 million Hong Kong people (person-trips) visited the locale in 2011, resulting in earnings over 700 million yuan ($110 million).

The numbers would seem encouraging for Jiang, if he did not experience the “best year ever” in 2010.

"We had an extraordinarily good year in 2010, after the high speed railway came into service. Not only my company, almost every travel agency harvested record high number of Hong Kong tourists,” recalled Jiang.

In 2010, the whole industry had witnessed a doubling of the number of Hong Kong tourists over 2009 and in some cases, triple. This was true not only in Shaoguan but in other cities along the railway route. Those figures dropped to about half their 2010 total’s last year. Thus Jiang’s bitter smile.

The story connecting the small, inland cities of Guangdong province and one of the world’s great shopping locations began in December 2009. That was when the Wuhan-Guangzhou High Speed Railway began operating. The railway cut travel time between the two cities at least by half. Starting from Guangzhou, the high speed railway line has only four stops in Guangdong province: Guangzhou South, Guangzhou North, Qingyuan city and Shaoguan North.

It took only 20 minutes from Guangzhou South Station to Qingyuan city, or 35 minutes to Shaoguan North Station, which serves as a traffic hub to famous travelling places, such as Danxia Mountain and South China Temple.

"All of a sudden, it seemed like the city (Shaoguan) was full of Hong Kong people; especially on weekends, all the local hotels were fully occupied by Hong Kong tourists,” recalled Wang Lei, general manager of China Travel Service Holdings Hong Kong Limited (Guangdong province).

"Qingyuan was embraced by Hong Kong tourists, especially from March to May, when flowers blossomed around spring water pools and made the trip full of romance,” said Wang.

Wang was in charge of picking up Hong Kong tourists at the Shenzhen border, normally at Luohu Port. His job was to arrange their trips to the top places of interest in Guangdong province.

"Small cities in Guangdong suddenly turned very popular on Hong Kong people’s tourism radar. Shaoguan was among one of the most popular places,” said Wang.

Wang added that the Wuhan-Guangdong high speed railway made it possible for Hong Kong people to visit small cities along the railway, such as Dongguan, Qingyuan and Shaoguan, within one or two days, providing more alternatives for Hong Kong people on weekends and short vacation days.

The Wuhan-Guangzhou High Speed Railway could run at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour at it’s fastest, even faster than the take-off speed of a jet airliner. That was why Hong Kong travel agencies rushed to offer the so-called “Fly on Land” tours that take Hong Kong residents to inland cities by high speed rail.

"I think it’s the time-saving and fresh way of traveling that attracted so many Hong Kong people there,” said Jiang. He still sounded excited talking about the tourism boom that was brought by the high speed railway in 2010.

In 2010, among the total of 48.8 million personal trips made by Hong Kong people to the mainland, 38 percent, or 18.8 million person-trips, were to other places in the Guangdong province other than Shenzhen, according to official statistics released by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department in July 2011.

The vast majority of all out-bound trips to the mainland were by land, either railway or bus, accounting for 95 percent, leaving only four percent by air and sea.

Further more, Hong Kong residents travelling to the mainland for personal travel and package tours spent HK$5.6 billion during their trips, accounting for 16 percent of the total.

The high speed railway did not only serve as a way of transportation, but also a “flying silk road” that delivers culture, joy and prosperity.

Shaoguan for example, the greatest beneficiary of the travel boom in 2010, hosted 139,000 person-trips from Hong Kong. That figure compared with 24,000 person-trips made by Hong Kong residents only one year earlier 2009.

Shaoguan city earned 3 billion yuan from Hong Kong tourists in 2010, nearly 54 times more than the 2009 figure of 55.87 million yuan, according to official statistics provided to China Daily by the Shaoguan Tourism Bureau.

"Personally, I can get a strong feeling of the significant increase of Hong Kong tourists in the city during the past two years. I come across the street with Hong Kong people very often. It’s easy to identify them from the way they talk and look,” said Deng Lijun, deputy department head of the Census and Statistics Department of Shaoguan Tourism Bureau.

To enlarge its capacity for accommodating Hong Kong visitors, Shaoguan built four five-star hotels along, four four-A level scenic spots and one five-A level scenic spot. The tourism industry had grown and could assert its status as the one of the economic pillars of the city.

If the days of blossoming expansion had continued, Jiang would have been pleased with his award.

His worries were not unfounded.

During Spring Festival from Jan 22 to 25, Hong Kong’s public holidays and once peak season for Hong Kong tour groups, travel was down. It was not that busy. “Last Spring Festival we received over 20 tour groups, each had 45 persons; however, (this year) we received bookings of 6 tour groups from Hong Kong (by Jan 20). That’s not good,” said Jiang.

He reckoned the “waterloo” came concurrent with an overall exodus of Hong Kong tourists to Shaoguan city, and other inland cities, that started last year.

The number of Hong Kong person-trips to Shaoguan dropped from 139,000 of 2010 to 105,000 in 2011. Profits returned by the industry dropped from 3 billion yuan to 2.3 billion yuan.

The “high fever” was cooled down significantly by two issues.

One was the high speed rail tragedy happened in Wenzhou city last May. It rattled the nerves of the whole country and hurt public confidence in the safety of the high speed railways.

For another thing, in the beginning of 2011, the central government had enforced a new policy that every ticket for high speed railway should match the owner’s personal identity card. In other words, one wishing to buy tickets must do so with his personal identity card in hand. Hardcopies are not accepted.

The second point really caught Jiang off guard. “We always book tickets and hotels for registered guests in advance to the trip, but for now, we can’t buy ticket for Hong Kong gusts anymore since we can’t have their ID card with us, and certainly they would be too busy to travel to Guangzhou to buy the tickets!” said Jiang. His tone grew anxious.

"This policy just does not fancy the business of tour groups by high speed railway, which used to be a principal business,” said Jiang.

In December 2011, on the second anniversary of the Wuhan-Guangzhou High Speed Railway, there were new moves and the light of new hope for Hong Kong railway tours.

The newly opened Guangzhou-Shenzhen High Speed Railway had extended the “flying silk road” to Shenzhen, a step closer to the SAR. When the railway fully is completed in 2016, it will be extended to West Kowloon, directly linking the SAR to Wuhan, Hubei province.

Currently, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen High Speed Railway runs roughly as fast as along the Wuhan-Guangzhou section -- at a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour. It takes only 40 minutes from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, with three stops in between. That would also means a shorter time for Hong Kong residents to travel to inland cities in the Guangdong province.

However, three weeks after launch, not a single travel agency has included the line into its existing high speed railway travel route, nor did they create a new route for it.

"We’re still closely watching its economic competitiveness and development of facilities around it,” said Wang Lei, the general manger for China Travel Service in Guangdong.

Besides shuttle buses, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen high-speed “Concord” passenger trains, operated by the Guangshen Railway Company Ltd, transported most passengers between Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The newly opened Guangzhou-Shenzhen high speed railway, operated by the Guangzhou Railway (Group), requires shorter travel times. Tickets are slightly lower in price and the link can’t seem to complete with “Concord”.

"Tourists seemed to be rather reluctant to take trains from the new Shenzhen North Station, since it is much less convenient than stations on the 'Concord’s’ line. Set alongside shuttle buses, the new line seemed to be too expensive,” said Wong.

By Jan 20, the country already was into the peak season for the largest annual homeward migration during Spring Festival. Railway tickets were sold out everywhere, including on board the “Concord”, yet the new Guangzhou-Shenzhen high speed railway reported it still had unsold tickets for Jan 22.

"You have unsold seats and I have the need to buy tickets for my clients, can’t we be more flexible here so that to benefit each other?” said Jiang. He wondered if the government could modify the “ticket match ID” policy to allow travel agencies to buy tickets on behalf of clients, using hard copies of their ID cards, during slack periods”.

"In that way, the high speed railway tourism may pick up again, and take more Hong Kong residents to undiscovered scenic spots on the mainland,” said Jiang.