The Travel Industry Council (TIC) has, from the beginning, advised agents to be transparent with partners and to suggest postponements, and not cancellations.

"We advise members when contacting their partners overseas to postpone, not cancel. We are transparent. By giving the correct information, when things get better, they will trust us and know we mean business," he said.

The Hong Kong Hotels Association's (HKHA) first vice chairman, Dan Lee, said he had been talking openly with hoteliers, his staff and the media about the impact of SARS and how to deal with it.

"There is a need to tell the truth. When we visited Guangzhou in February to cooperate on training courses, they did know about the pneumonia in the city during the Lunar New Year. The tourism bureau and the state government didn't want to announce it, so they kept quiet for almost 10 days. A lot of cases were hidden to avoid panic. We have a different way of thinking here," he said.

HKHA said March occupancies city-wide, were about 50 percent.

April is expected to be dire.

We need to have total transparency as to how Hong Kong handles SARS. People also need to understand that it is not a deadly disease and it is under control," said Barbara Pang, Mandarin Oriental's director of sales and marketing.

The virus has had a devastating impact on five-star hotels that rely on long-haul, high-yield leisure travellers.

These hotels are feeling the biggest pinch and Peninsula Hong Kong's said as painful as this is on its property, it will have a profoundly positive impact on the industry as a whole.

"The negative impact of the virus has actually laid out in the open all the flaws in the current promotion of Hong Kong as a destination.

"This will serve to unite the tourism industry, to address the more long-term and macro aspects of Hong Kong's attractiveness as a destination," Kiong said. "All the issues that have plagued the tourism industry (in the past) must now be given concerted and meaningful attention because unless there is a significant and renewed marketing campaign on very tangible and compelling reasons to return to Hong Kong, many businesses will face dire consequences, issues such as environmental pollution; bait and switch tactics; high prices of liquor; lack of quality venues for incentive groups and more.

"The crisis will also force Hong Kong to seriously re-address the long-haul markets. We can no longer adopt the view that opening China will fill our restaurants and hotels," he said.

Asia-hotels.com CEO, Jon Stonham, whose Hong Kong business is down 95 percent, says hiding the truth shows the immaturity of a market that will later endure a loss in confidence from other parts of the world.

Hong Kong business is currently decimated, especially with regard to the FIT market and the leisure market. Effectively April is lost, and we now have until September to get Hong Kong back on the map when the next peak is.

"I think that China has shown its immaturity on the world arena by not being as forthcoming as they could and should have been. If China wants to be treated as world power, then she needs to grow up and her current leaders need to be a little more visionary globally and show some leadership. The short-term gain of trying to hide this will have a longer-term lack of confidence in China, although given its potential, it is unlikely to last long," he said.

The Hong Kong Tourism Commission has called for the industry to come together to build morale and re-establish confidence in Hong Kong, Duncan Pescod, Hong Kong SAR deputy commissioner for tourism, said. "What we need to do is get on top of how we handle the comeback in visitors to Hong Kong. The trade has to start looking at measures to build confidence for the future."