Growing number of Hong Kong’s domestic helpers embracing holidays in mainland China
- Trend among helpers has boosted the business of travel agencies offering low-fare day trips across the border
Picturesque natural scenery, bargains and the chance to enjoy entirely new experiences have encouraged Hong Kong-based domestic helper Afolin Candaza to head to mainland China multiple times.
The 41-year-old Filipino, who has worked in Hong Kong for 10 years, has joined three day-trip group tours taking helpers to neighbouring Guangdong province since August of last year.
Candaza said she was eager to explore the mainland during her weekly day off on Sunday as she had already covered Hong Kong extensively. She added that an increasing number of her friends, who also worked as helpers in the city, had been venturing across the border.
Similar to their Hong Kong employers, a growing number of foreign domestic helpers have been heading north to spend – a trend that picked up after the border reopening last year following years-long pandemic-related restrictions.
The last trip Candaza joined in February took her and a group of more than 30 helpers, mostly from the Philippines, to the Yinxian resort in Dongguan, her second time there.
They gathered at 7.30am at the Lo Wu checkpoint and took a two-hour bus ride to the destination, a resort offering natural scenery and amusement rides.
