‘Anywhere in Hong Kong’ can be visitor hotspot: Xia Baolong, Beijing’s top man on city affairs, urges tourism revamp amid ‘profound changes’
- Xia Baolong, director of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, tells tourism chief Kevin Yeung every part of city can be potential tourist spot
- Yeung is on three-day visit to capital, with his schedule including ceremony at Beijing’s Palace Museum and visit to Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Beijing’s top official on Hong Kong affairs has urged the local administration to revitalise its tourism offerings amid “profound changes” in the market and treat every corner of the city as a potential spot to lure visitors.
Xia Baolong, the director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, told tourism chief Kevin Yeung Yun-hung in a meeting in Beijing that the sector must recognise “external and internal changes” that call for reinvention and the adoption of fresh policies.
He said the city should take a “high quality” approach that drew on elements of its own character, adding that tourism development was highly important for driving economic growth and pursuing new opportunities.
“It is necessary [for the city] to build up an image that ‘anywhere in Hong Kong can serve as a tourist spot’,” Xia said.
“[The city must] fully explore its rich tourism resources, actively draw on successful experiences from various places, innovate ideas, optimise policies, promote participation across society, vigorously develop new tourism routes and products, and promote warm hospitality and continuous improvement of service quality.”
Xia did not elaborate further on the external and internal changes driving such efforts.
“Make Hong Kong’s hallmark as the best tourism destination even shinier,” he said, reiterating Beijing’s support for the sector.
The Hong Kong government on Friday issued a statement saying Yeung used the meeting with Xia to introduce the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau’s latest work. It stopped short of offering further details.
“Mr Xia fully recognised the work of the [bureau]. He also expressed his hope that Hong Kong’s tourism industry would reach new heights on the path to continuous innovation,” it said.
Yeung is on a three-day trip to the capital which wraps up on Saturday, with his schedule including the discussions with Xia, a plaque unveiling ceremony at Beijing’s Palace Museum and a visit to the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
On Friday, veteran lawmaker and member of the key decision-making Executive Council Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung said Hong Kong should inject elements of what it hoped to promote economically into its tourism offerings.
“Because that is something Hong Kong is proud of. We have been promoting green tech, green finance, [artificial intelligence] … we got it, we got it all,” he said.
He added having such elements could also push tourists to spend more while they were in the city.
“Selling fishballs [at night markets] will not make you rich. It is high tech stuff that will make you rich,” he said. “We have a very stable market and economy, so we should promote more of those.”
The recent Labour Day “golden week” holiday, which lasted five days in mainland China, underscored Hong Kong’s struggle to recover, with inbound trips reaching only two-thirds of pre-pandemic levels.
Officials and industry players have said visitors from the mainland, who accounted for 77 per cent of the city’s 11.22 million total tourist arrivals in the first quarter of this year, are increasingly looking to enjoy experiences rather than splurge on consumer products.
Overall tourist arrivals jumped by 154.3 per cent in the first quarter against the same period last year, according to the Tourism Board’s latest statistics.
