The tourism trade plays an indispensable role in bringing visitors to Hong Kong and enriching their in-town experience. In 2018/19, the HKTB continued to work closely with the travel trade and support them on various fronts to fuel the growth of Hong Kong tourism. In particular, we launched two new funding programmes and joined other parties in organising two large-scale events to explore untapped business opportunities.
Connecting trade partners at international events
- Number of guests attending the Hong Kong International Tourism Convention: over 1,000
- Participation of the Hong Kong travel trade in the four trade shows: more than 90 members from 81 companies
On 12 December 2018, the HKTB joined with the HKSAR Government and the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong to organise the Hong Kong International Tourism Convention. Themed “Leveraging Belt and Road Initiative & Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development”, the event offered a premier platform for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Greater Bay Area) cities and trade heads from around the world to explore the opportunities arising from the Belt and Road Initiative and Greater Bay Area. The large-scale international convention was attended by an important audience consisting of government officials, tourism authorities and the travel trade from Hong Kong SAR, the Macao SAR and the other nine Greater Bay Area cities, and various Mainland provinces and 34 countries including the Belt and Road countries.
In addition to two plenary sessions and a keynote luncheon, customised tours were organised for the participating travel trade to visit the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link Hong Kong Section – the new infrastructure that have greatly enhanced the Hong Kong-Mainland transportation network and presented vast opportunities for multi-destination tourism development.
Throughout 2018/19, we also led the Hong Kong travel trade to attend major trade shows, such as the China International Travel Mart, China International Import Expo, Shanghai, the Guangzhou International Travel Fair and ITB Berlin. The Hong Kong booth we set up at these international industry events served as a platform for our Hong Kong trade partners to deepen communication and foster cooperation with their Mainland and overseas counterparts.
Hong Kong • Live in Ho Chi Minh City
- Number of consumers welcomed at the “Hong Kong Pub”: over 1,500
As a “teaser” for the real experiences in Hong Kong, we opened a pop-up “Hong Kong Pub” at the “In Style • Hong Kong Expo”, organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council in Ho Chi Minh City in September 2018, to offer Vietnamese consumers just a taste of our cool city.
Reminiscent of the Hong Kong tea house and yet featuring funky street art from Old Town Central, the pop-up “pub” transported the patrons to Hong Kong with its aromas: “Hong Kong Milky Paradise”, a cocktail created by an award-winning mixologist with inspiration from Hong Kong-style milk tea, was served alongside popular Hong Kong street food such as freshly made bouncy fish balls, seafood dumplings and Chinese pastries. Both the travel trade and Vietnamese consumers gave the thumbs up to the creative idea.
New funding schemes to encourage innovation
- Number of tour products supported by the Explore Hong Kong Tours Scheme since its launch in 2012: 70
- Participation of the Hong Kong Extended Stay Programme: 44,000 registrations from 14 markets
- Response to the Green Tourism Pilot Scheme’s global promotion: 486,000 clicks on the scheme’s promotional posts
In 2018/19, we further enhanced support for our trade partners by putting in place the “Green Tourism Pilot Scheme” and “Hong Kong Extended Stay Programme”, which funded, respectively, the development of eco-tours and special tours for lengthening visitors’ stay.
And we continued to run the “Explore Hong Kong Tours Scheme” (formerly known as “New Tour Product Development Scheme”), which encouraged the local travel trade to develop creative land tour products with subsidies for marketing the products. In line with our neighbourhood promotion, new tour products such as “Shopping in Sham Shui Po” were selected and funded by the scheme in 2018/19.
These initiatives gave the tourism trade greater confidence to invest in new products which would in turn enrich the experience of visitors in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Family Fun and Getaway to Hong Kong
- Scale of the two campaigns: 72 promotions launched in 12 markets with over 190 trade partners from different sectors
- Number of visitors attracted by the campaigns to Hong Kong: nearly 1.2 million
For the third straight year, we worked with the travel trade from both Hong Kong and our source markets on “Hong Kong Family Fun” and “Getaway to Hong Kong”. The two campaigns targeted families and young travellers – the two most important visitor segments which together accounted for almost 70% of the overnight vacationers to Hong Kong. During the year in review, the two campaigns saw double the number of promotions compared to the previous year and recorded the largest participation of both the travel trade and visitors.
