We’ve just published the sixth instalment of our Hong Kong staycation series – it’s about a trip to the town of Stanley from Central on a red-sailed junk. We wanted to see what impact the protests were having on popular tourist attractions. The final section, plus our “what we learned” conclusions, will go out tomorrow. READ MORE

The protests have affected all sorts of businesses in all sorts of ways – burnt-out shops and banks have become a familiar sight in several parts of Hong Kong. A less obvious victim is Dolphin Watch, which runs boat trips for those wishing to see Hong Kong's pink dolphins. It says bookings have nosedived 60 per cent and it has been operating at a loss since the protests began, the South China Morning Post reported. A pity, as seeing these beautiful animals is a magical experience. READ MORE

The Hong Kong Tourism Board yesterday published total visitor arrivals figures for September, which showed a 34 percent drop compared with the same month last year. This followed an even larger fall of 39 percent in August. We suspect the impact of the protests on the leisure tourism sector, as opposed to business travel and visits for family reasons, is greater than these numbers suggest. A recurring theme at all the attractions we went to was how few tourists we saw. Meanwhile, we’re told that one tour company is offering to include a protest in its sightseeing itineraries!

We’re all eager to protect our planet, but writing a travel blog and talking about sustainability is quite a challenge. Sue went along to a lunch where three “green travel” experts spoke about this conundrum – with mixed results. She’ll be writing about it next week, with an added report on this week’s launch of K11 Musea in Kowloon. It’s a gigantic shopping mall with “green” walls and an “urban farm” on the roof. We’re not so sure about that one either. The photo shows Sue and Colin with Venisa Chu, the park's senior operations manager.

We were relieved to see that the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library In Simi Valley, California, was saved from a wildfire this week. Whatever you think about Reagan, this is a fascinating place to visit, particularly for us Brits as we have nothing like this at home. There was once some talk about establishing a library for Reagan’s friend Margaret Thatcher, but this came to nothing. The Reagan one is packed with interesting exhibits - an Airforce One presidential jet you can walk through, Reagan’s armour-plated limo, a section of the Berlin Wall...

One quirkier item is the Ronald Reagan Pub, where you can stop for a drink or a snack. This is a real pub from Ballyporeen in Ireland, Reagan’s ancestral home, where he downed a pint of beer during a visit in 1984. When the pub closed some years later it was dismantled and shipped to the library, where it was reassembled and installed close to Air Force One. We’ll be publishing a post about the library next week.

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