Despite repeated pleas from the government and representatives of the retail and catering industries, landlords of commercial properties in the prime business districts have agreed only to make token short-term concessions on rent.

Obviously, the landlords, including nearly all the major property developers, believe that the coronavirus pandemic will either go away or an effective vaccine will be found in a few months’ time, and all will be well.

Let’s not even talk about social responsibility which is a rare commodity in this hard-nose business town. But in their dedicated pursuit of maximum returns from their assets, the landlords have blinded themselves to the developing business trend.

To be sure, the pandemic cannot and will not last for too long as vaccines that show promise are said to be undergoing the final stages of testing. At least one of those is reportedly ready for marketing by the end of the year.

But is business going to return to what it was like before the pandemic? The answer is that it will not, according to many economic analysts and retail industry experts.

As is well known, the extraordinary high commercial rents in the busy tourist and business districts were sustained by the brisk sales of goods and services at exorbitant profit margins to free-spending tourists, mainly from the Chinese mainland who used to frock to Hong Kong in droves to snap up expensive brand named fashions, exotic dried seafoods and Chinese herbal drugs.

While in Hong Kong, the tourists also dined at restaurants that wowed patrons not so much for the quality of their cuisines but rather for the high prices they charged for the rare delicacies they served. (I have always wondered why anyone would want to pay thousands of dollars to savor dried sea cucumber that is basically tasteless.)

The number of mainland visitors began to decline long before the social unrest of last year and the pandemic outbreak. Many of them have found better bargains elsewhere. They certainly aren’t going to come back after the pandemic.

Many retailers and restaurant owners are talking about switching their focus to catering for local consumers. To do so, they don’t have to be in prime commercial districts. In fact, property agents expect that many more of these businesses will be looking to rent premises in the residential neighborhoods at much more reasonable rents.