Hong Kong Tourism Board to woo overnight big spenders, diversify visitor mix

The Hong Kong Tourism Board will allocate three-quarters of its resources to overseas markets this year in a strategic shift aimed at diversifying visitor demographics and attracting more overnight high spenders to the city. The board also revealed on Wednesday that it would launch a new global campaign by the end of April to promote Hong Kong as a unique world city through social media, advertisements on regional broadcasters and billboards in selected countries. “It is not an easy task to convince those visitors who only plan for a day trip to Hong Kong to stay overnight,” the board’s executive director Anthony Lau Chun-hon conceded, referring to tourists coming from nearby mainland Chinese cities. “If so, why don’t we focus on attracting more visitors from farther away or overseas?” Unveiling the board’s work plan for this year, Lau said the government-subvented body would adjust its resource allocation by placing 75 per cent of the money towards overseas markets. Besides major markets, the board will step up efforts in Asean countries, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, the Middle East and India, alongside other potential European markets like Italy and Spain. The remaining 25 per cent of resources would go to the mainland market but focus on non-Guangdong cities in a bid to boost the proportion of overnight visitors, he said. The government has earmarked HK$1.66 billion (US$212 million) in funding for the Tourism Board in this year’s budget, a 35 per cent increase from the previous year. It would also bring down the curtain on the two-decade-old “A Symphony of Lights” and replace it with an upgraded version across various districts. Tourism Board chairman Peter Lam Kin-ngok said that the new project comprised of two types of shows – immersive projections at various places specifically for different festivals and long-term installations of lights at featured attractions such as the Peak. He said the first phase of the light installations would be rolled out in May or June. The board would also introduce new – and step up the existing – events in drawing more visitors to Hong Kong. One of the new initiatives in the pipeline was to turn the coming October into a “Halloween month”, with the board partnering the business sector to host cosplay-themed events for four consecutive weekends to draw young people and families. A special cup for worldwide universities would also be introduced to the Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races and Hong Kong Cyclothon in a bid to boost its international elements. The board added it would expand its “Hong Kong Neighbourhood” initiative – which sought to connect local communities with tourists – to cover new districts beyond Central, Sham Shui Po and West Kowloon. With the conflict in the Middle East suspending direct flights between the city and the region as well as pushing up air tickets and fuel surcharges, Lam said there was a silver lining and remained upbeat about the city’s tourism prospects. He said that visitors who originally planned to head to the Middle East might head elsewhere and highlighted that Hong Kong as a safe destination remained attractive to tourists. He added the board would closely monitor the situation in the Middle East and would take a flexible approach to its promotional initiatives. Hong Kong welcomed 9.95 million visitors in the first two months of this year, 18 per cent more than the same period last year, with the increase driven primarily by mainland travellers visiting the city over the Chinese New Year period.