Three directions to successful tourism development

The Hong Kong Tourism Board has three key objectives that guide its strategies: Consolidating Hong Kong’s status as an international city, strengthening Hong Kong’s role as a tourism hub, and pursuing high quality growth to expand the contribution of tourism to Hong Kong.

• Consolidating Hong Kong’s status as an international city

  Hong Kong has the unparalleled advantages of enjoying the strong support of the Motherland and being closely connected to the entire world under the “One Country, Two Systems” policy of governance and economic development. This makes it the only world-class city that combines the strengths of the Mainland with our historic links and easy access to the rest of the world. In addition, Hong Kong’s East-meets-West culture and diverse and seasoned professional services provide a solid foundation for Hong Kong to promote itself as the “Events Capital of Asia” and the “World’s Meeting Place”.
  
  As well as staging and supporting major events across the city, HKTB has established a Mega Event Development and Advancement Division this year in line with the HKSAR Government’s strategy of promoting the mega events economy. This dedicated team serves as a “first point of contact” for event organisers, as well as scouting potential events to be staged in the city and supporting their promotion.
  
  The HKTB will continue to work hand in hand with government departments and event organisers to ensure events held in Hong Kong receive the best possible cross-departmental support to maximise the benefits of the mega events economy.

• Strengthening Hong Kong's Role as a Tourism Hub

  Hong Kong is not only a leading destination but also a regional tourism hub, which has the capacity to attract visitors to stay in our city on their way to and from the Mainland and neighbouring Asian countries and regions. Hong Kong is able to capitalise on its unique advantage of “One Country, Two Systems”, which gives Hong Kong the opportunity to consolidate its status as an international financial, aviation and trading centre, while deepening cooperation with cities within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). By doing this, Hong Kong can play a pivotal role in the nation’s development and interactions with the world.
  
  Because of its geography, Hong Kong is ideally placed to serve as a “super-connector” between cities in the Mainland and overseas locations. Hong Kong can be reached by plane within five hours from countries and territories where half of the world’s population live. Meanwhile, the extensive increase of high-speed rail services in both frequency and destinations, as well as the addition of overnight sleeper train services, have brought Hong Kong and cities across the Mainland closer than ever and enhanced the convenience and speed of intercity travel.
  
  HKTB fully appreciates the great potential these advantages offer. We are drawing on our global network and expertise and working in partnership with other GBA cities to reach out to the world to showcase the GBA’s tourism appeal to visitor source markets, and attract visitors to come for multi-destination journeys.
  
  For Meetings, Incentive Travels, Conventions, and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism HKTB adopts the strategic positioning of “Meet Hong Kong, Meet the GBA” and “Meet Hong Kong, Meet the World” to maximise Hong Kong’s unique position as a gateway connecting with the businesses of the Mainland and those from the rest of the world, and creating new business opportunities. This allows Hong Kong to fully utilise its role as a “super-connector”, as well as a “super value-adder”.

• Pursuing high quality tourism development

  HKTB consistently promotes high-quality tourism development. It organises a wide range of events which enrich tourist experience, stimulate spending from tourism, and encourage visitors to extend their stays in town. We have also collaborated with trade partners to launch a new promotion on hospitality to raise standards and satisfaction levels for both visitors and local consumers.
  
  Beyond this, HKTB is committed to exploring potential new tourism source markets, such as the very promising GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries in the Middle East, ASEAN, South Asian countries and the Belt and Road nations. These initiatives will attract a more diverse range of visitors and drive both the quality and quantity of tourism growth.
  
  For these efforts to succeed, our trade partners in the tourism industry must work hand in hand with us to launch new and attractive tourism products in a timely and strategic manner, responding to evolving visitor preferences and travel patterns to further increase the contribution of tourism to society and to the economy. HKTB look forward to continuing our longstanding partnership with all of our tourism industry stakeholders to further strengthen Hong Kong’s competitiveness and sustainable development.

Planting the Seeds for Tourism and Economic Growth

I firmly believe that, given our unique advantages of having the Motherland’s strong support while being a gateway to the world, the tourism sector will play an increasingly important role in promoting the global image of Hong Kong as well as of the whole country, and play in driving economic growth. I hope that the trade continues to be proactive and flexible in responding to changing visitor habits and consumption patterns by identifying, and innovating positively to these evolutions in the industry, and contributing to the prosperity and growth of Hong Kong and of our Motherland.