Hong Kong skyline: Recently A$50 million was paid for a plush apartment overlooking the business quarter

JETSTAR’S 35 extra flights a week to Coolangattta may be great local tourism news but Gold Coast promotion is grounded in Hong Kong.

Wealthy Asians are not exactly desperate for a cheap overseas holiday.

The luxury Dreamliner passenger aircraft will be ready for takeoff this week.

Korean Airlines are doubling the number of business class seats on all aircraft in response to demand.

Walk up the teeming streets in Kowloon and it is hard to find a travel agent promoting the Gold Coast.

The local press is just as bleak. There are promotions for Bali, Cebu, Cambodia, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur.

Or Bangkok, Beijing, Tibet or Tokyo.

World Challenge Travel advertises round trips to Australia only slightly cheaper than London.

That is the trouble with Hong Kong. An aviation hub where there are non-stop flights to preferred international destinations.

C & M Travel’s 33 destinations mentioned only Sydney and Melbourne. They can do London cheaper than Sydney with Air New Zealand.

The three day/two night shopping trip specials to Tokyo with economy fare on Cathay Pacific and a Hyatt hotel will cost a little over A$500 a head.

De-luxe four day/three night private island resort packages to the shady Philippines are advertised for less than A$600.

Gold Coast took a bad enough image beating from Schoolies.

The international infamy only underlined the fact that tourist rivals such as Hong Kong are the safest holiday destinations in the world. Drunken mayhem is rare. Thieves quietly disappear.

It is as if the economic recession has not occurred in Hong Kong. Despite gloomy forecasts from the Jeremiahs in the Australian banking business, Chinese demand for commodities is stoking again.

Capital raising in Hong Kong among financial/ investment firms is expected to exceed A$3 billion next year.

Try as they might, Chinese authorities seem powerless to stop mainland money leaking into Hong Kong and its next door neighbour Macau.

Racing turnover at the international meeting at Sha Tin on Sunday topped A$150 million.

Just as much was invested overseas and illegally.

Skyrocketing property prices in Hong Kong included the recent A$50 million paid for a plush apartment overlooking Hong Kong’s Central business quarter. Real estate prices generally are up 30 per cent this year.

Attempts to slow gambling growth in Macau include the introduction of smoking bans at the district’s vast casinos.

Good luck. Casino turnover in Macau in October reached A$1.75 billion — double the haul in Nevada!

Designer brand boutiques are the casinos of Hong Kong when the Happy Valley and Sha Tin racecourses are not operating. Every time Australians come to Hong Kong and catch the ferry to Kowloon they find that the queues outside Cartier and Chanel boutiques are stretching longer and longer.

Modest handbags cost up to A$4000 but tourists from the Chinese mainland are not only happy to cough up, they will stand in those damn queues for two hours.

Christmas trees and decorations are everywhere. Christmas shopping here seems to be regarded as a privilege. Hong Kong toymakers are desperate to keep up with demand.

Nightspots and restaurants such as the high-rise Aqua Bar in Kowloon offer Gold Coast an interesting dining and wining challenge.

They do not call Hong Kong the Manhattan of Asia for nothing — even Manchester United is planning to open a A$3 million cafe-cum-bar in the Kowloon waterfront area.

Want authentic? Ramshackle family cafes in the alleys and side streets up from Queen’s Road in Central offer two courses of chicken, pork and rice plus a large bottle of beer for about A$7 a couple.

Fish are still swimming in buckets in the market around the corner.

Ride back to your pub in those ancient model Toyota Crown taxis will cost A$5.

Or take the ferry. About A30c will carry you across Victoria Harbour. Bonus will be the panorama of festive lights 30 storeys high.

Traditional hotels such as the Peninsula in Salisbury Road, Kowloon, take full-page ads. Competition is hot.

Another plush skyscraper hotel will open soon around the corner.

Further up Nathan Road in Kowloon is the ladies’ market in the Mong Kok area.

Noisy, trashy but fun for bargain hunters scared of the boutique prices. Jump off the subway at Yau Ma Tei station.

Hong Kong authorities recently raided waterfront warehouses in a bid to slow down the huge trade in copy handbags, watches and designer gear. But on Saturday, the touts were thick in Kowloon as if the crackdown had never happened.

The Gold Coast is never going to be another Hong Kong. Not without a cruise ship terminal. Every morning another liner seems to sail up the harbour. Pirates know better than to tangle with the Hong Kong tourism business.

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