【明報專訊】IN the past several years, the May 1 holiday has meant much to Hong Kong tourism, bringing great business to the hotel, retail, and catering industries, and has come to be known as the "golden week". However, the prospects are grim this year. According to the tourism industry's most optimistic estimates, the number of tour groups from the mainland will decrease by 50 per cent, while the more pessimistic estimates predict a massive drop of 90 per cent. And we cannot expect much with respect to the number of individual visitors. In fact, there has been a continuous fall in mainland visitor numbers since early last year.