Welcoming the additional funding for the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) that was announced in the 2021/22 Budget recently, Dr YK Pang, Chairman-HKTB reportedly said that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought global tourism to a standstill for over a year, and the regional competition for visitors is expected to be fiercer than ever. Therefore, the HKTB must step up promotions in source markets to maintain Hong Kong’s competitiveness.
“The HKTB has formulated short- and medium-to-long-term strategies. In addition to its continuous efforts to enhance the local atmosphere and support the travel trade, the HKTB’s goal is to encourage visitors to choose Hong Kong as their first destination when cross-border travel resumes. Looking ahead, we will reinvent the city’s tourism brand and captivate the high-yield visitor segments. Since the Government has started the large-scale COVID-19 Vaccination Programme, we hope the public will actively participate in the Programme so that the tourism industry can recover from the pandemic as soon as possible,” he added.
The additional funding for short-term strategies was to cheerlead and boost domestic consumption to support the local trade; for organising large-scale promotions to drive industry recovery when cross-border travel resumes.
For medium-to-long-term strategy, funds were allocated for conducting a holistic review of the Hong Kong tourism brand to reinvent Hong Kong’s tourism image and captivate high-yield visitor segments, ongoing works, enhance the subsidy schemes and sponsor trade members’ participation in trade events to speed up business recovery and organise and support mega-events to maintain Hong Kong’s international exposure. Planning for the above is in progress and details will be announced in due course.
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