Bonaqua in HK

Our group have made several discussions about what object should we pick and we made a decision of picking Bonaqua as our topic. We chose Bonaqua because water is a daily necessity of human being and there are over 53% of Hong Kong people who drink bottled water. Since Bonaqua is one of the major brands of bottled water, we chose this brand as our target.

After choosing the object, we started to find its price over different places in hk. There are in total 11 places, which are Central, CityU(Kowloon tong), Kwai Fong, Mong Kok, Ocean Park, Sai Kung, Sha Tin, Sheung Shui, Ta Ao, Tsuen Wan and Wong Tai Sin. I was responsible for places like Tsuen Wan, Kwai Fong, Tai Ao and Ocean Park. The most expensive Bonaqua we found in HK is a 770ml Bonaqua sold in Ocean Park ($25), and the cheapest Bonaqua is a 500ml Bonaqua sold in Kwai Fong and Mong Kok ($4), and also the 770ml Bonaqua sold in Tsuen Wan ($5). After the data collection, we started to act separately and my part is about tourism development.

One thing that connects bonaqua and its price with tourism development in hk is the price differentiation. It is a pricing strategy that charges different segments of customers altered prices for the same products or services. It is an effective tool to target certain types of customers, and in this case, the tourists. Merchant uses this strategy to maximize profit. For example, when we go to amusement park or theme park like Ocean Park, we often find that food or other things such as tissue there cost much higher than other places in hk. I went to Ocean Park and I found that 770ml Bonaqua is $25 in Ocean park and its almost 4 times compare to the same size of Bonaqua selling in Tsuen Wan.

This pricing strategy that Ocean Park, Disneyland or any other theme park takes is mostly depends on the evaluation on visitors’ willingness to pay after entering the park and the majority of the tourists are more willing to pay for a higher price than local visitors. So, apparently theme parks are all targeting at tourists, not local people. Is it fair to ignore the needs of local people? Does it means that local people should not go to tourist destinations?

So, here comes to the problems it leads to. Hong Kong-mainland conflict is one of the hottest topic in HK recently and it refers to tensions between people from Hong Kong and mainland China. Its presence is mostly because of the policies of the HK government to encourage mainland visitors to come visit. The frequent visiting from mainland people have created some social issues like parallel trading.

Since 2012, there have been an increase in mainland parallel traders coming to the northern parts of Hong Kong to import goods and export them back to mainland. Products that are popular among these traders include infant formula and household products. As a result of shortages of milk powder in Hong Kong for an extended time, the government imposed restrictions on the amount of milk powder exports from Hong Kong. Besides, since northern places like Sheung Shui became the transaction centers of the traders, this resulted in discontent from nearby residents. The price of a same product in this kind of tourist areas is increased thanks to the frequent visiting from mainland visitors and it’s not fair for HK people who live in “tourist areas” and suffered from a higher price.

Another reason why differences in prices and geography relates to inequality in Hong Kong is that chain stores are somehow “bullying” independent stores. People in hk always complain about the developer hegemony and claim that it exacerbates the Wealth Disparity in hk. We found the chain stores(7-11, welcome, etc.) are all selling Bonaqua in a higher price than independent store, which means that chain stores can earn more than independent stores. Although we all know that independent stores are selling cheaper things, we tend to buy things in chain stores because they are everywhere and easy to find. Independent stores are now facing the crisis of close down thanks to the extremely high rent and it that why we think that Bonaqua and its price can be related to inequality in hk.

I think our group is quite creative because one of our groupmates created a short animation about places we covered in this project. She presented the boring data into a more intresting way and she also simplified the data. I know that making an animation work is very time consuming and I really appreciated her effort. This was a wonderful expericence to work with my groupmates from Mainland and Taiwan.