Hong Kong Summer Treats

During the pandemic, HKTB has been boosting the local ambience through “Holiday at Home”, including the introduction of a series of Spend-to-Redeem Local Tours and Staycation offers to encourage the local public to be our own tourists. As the fifth wave of the pandemic stabilised, HKTB launched a new “Hong Kong Summer Treats” programme in May 2022 to continuously generate a positive ambience across the city. The programme featured hugely popular Spend-to-Redeem “Local Tours”, “Staycation Delights”, together with the “Feasts ‘n’ Treats” dining offers. The HKTB also introduced “Hot Summer Deals” on the new e-platform of the DiscoverHongKong website with 200,000 limited quota offers on retail shops, restaurants, theme parks, and other attractions to brighten up summer for local residents.

The “Hot Summer Deals” not only drove consumption within the city but also created business opportunities for local enterprises and gave them an opportunity to gear up for the return of visitors. The HKTB also leveraged the experience of distributing offers on our own e-platform to lay down the groundwork for forthcoming initiatives aimed at providing visitors with more diversified offers.

Returning Mega Events to put Hong Kong back on the global stage

Meanwhile, the HKTB brought mega events back to the city in physical format, promoting them through global media to raise Hong Kong’s visibility in key visitor source markets.

Arts and cultural tourism are growing trends in the post-pandemic tourism landscape. A host of international events are already regularly held here and the completion of world-class arts and cultural venues such as M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum gives Hong Kong an even greater edge in arts and culture. As such, in May 2022, HKTB launched the “Arts in Hong Kong” campaign to promote our year-round arts and cultural tourism offerings and to establish Hong Kong as an East-meets-West Centre for International Cultural Exchange. We also successfully revived the Hong Kong Cyclothon, which saw about 4,000 cyclists dashing through the city and was the largest outdoor sporting event of the year.

On the other hand, Hong Kong is equally renowned for its spectacular festivals and celebrations. To mark the 25^th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, “Harbour Fiesta”, a special edition of A Symphony of Lights, was staged to highlight Hong Kong’s dazzling appeal as Asia’s World City. Following the summer celebration, the hugely popular “Hong Kong WinterFest”, “Hong Kong New Year Countdown Celebrations”, and “Fortune Around Hong Kong” Chinese New Year Celebrations also returned in an exuberant style, generating excitement across the city and attracting widespread media coverage in both Mainland and overseas visitor source markets.

Bringing back trade partners in person

The HKTB organised a familiarisation trip for travel trade partners from Southeast Asian markets to experience in person Hong Kong’s new tourism appeals and winter festivity in mid-December 2022. Around 60 trade representatives from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore were invited to experience Hong Kong’s host of new attractions and encouraged them to launch tourism products in their respective source markets for attracting visitors to Hong Kong.

In the meantime, international K-Pop sensation Rain (Jeong Ji-hoon) appeared at the “Hong Kong WinterFest” where he oversaw the opening of the Christmas Wonderland. He also shared his experience with audience around the world and gave his stamp of approval to Hong Kong as a must-see destination.

Showcasing Hong Kong’s unique position

The HKTB worked hard to maintain the MICE (meeting, incentive travel, convention & exhibition) tourism sector. With HKTB’s efforts, some conferences have resumed in Hong Kong during the last quarter of 2022. Leveraging Hong Kong’s unique position, we promoted the message “Meet Hong Kong, Meet the GBA” to source markets for this high value-added sector, encouraging MICE event organisers to make Hong Kong their base for connecting with Mainland markets while offering exhibitors from the Mainland a stepping stone to international markets. The successful promotion reinforced Hong Kong’s status as a MICE hub for the region.

Similarly, throughout the pandemic, we maintained close communication with cruise operators to prepare for their return. Our efforts yielded instant results with the cruise ship Silver Spirits from Silversea Cruises arriving in January as anti-pandemic inbound control measures began to lift and heralding the return of cruise tourism to Hong Kong.

Saying “Hello” to the world

The journey towards tourism recovery was underway and gained momentum as cross-boundary travel with the Mainland resumed in 2023. With the presence of Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive Mr John Lee Ka-chiu and the support of government officials, the “Hello Hong Kong” large-scale global promotional campaign was launched in early February after prolonged preparations and rolled out in stages across visitor source markets around the world.

“Hello” is a simple, friendly greeting that is universally understood. We encourage everyone to greet global visitors with a simple and direct “Hello” and attract visitors to Hong Kong; at the same time, friends and fans of Hong Kong in source markets also greet Hong Kong from beyond. We also encourage participation from all sectors of Hong Kong to greet each other, creating a joyful atmosphere to greet a new wave of post-pandemic tourists.

Stepping out in four stages

There were four key strategies in our promotions. First, the HKTB produced more than 330 short videos featuring celebrities from the community and different sectors, which were broadcast on thousands of platforms around the world to extend greetings and welcoming messages. Secondly, based on our belief that “seeing is believing”, HKTB invited travellers to experience Hong Kong for themselves and spread positive word-of-mouth testimony around the world. Thirdly, we teamed up with our travel trade partners to reach out to the world, taking part in global trade events to showcase Hong Kong’s appeal. Finally, we continued to create unforgettable excitement for visitors through our international mega events and MICE activities, to offer memorable experiences to visitors.

The “Hello Hong Kong” campaign demonstrated to the world that Hong Kong returns to normal and is ready to welcome visitors with open arms. The launch ceremony generated more than 4,400 reports in major international media. Promotional videos for the campaign received more than 68 million views, and reached a worldwide audience of 100 million. In addition, the “Hong Kong Goodies” visitor consumption vouchers became a must-have bonus for visitors. One million sets of vouchers were distributed from February this year, and HKTB started giving out one million more from July to benefit more visitors. HKTB also fully supported the promotion of the free air ticket giveaway by the Airport Authority Hong Kong and local carriers, giving away 500,00 free air tickets to consumers in visitor source markets to attract them to Hong Kong.

Upholding excellence

Professional and high-quality tourism services have been a hallmark of the Hong Kong visitor experience over the years, and it is a tradition we are determined to uphold. Therefore, HKTB called on businesses in all sectors and industries to work together to deliver a consistently high-quality experience to local consumers and visitors alike.

Navigating a new tourism era

Hong Kong is now firmly on course for recovery. I would like to thank the Hong Kong SAR Government, travel trade partners, sponsors, and the magnificent people of Hong Kong for their trust and unfailing support. I would also like to thank our board members for their wise counsel and my colleagues for working tirelessly through the pandemic. Together, we have put ourselves on course for a tourism future of extraordinary possibilities.