The Periscope stars: Hong Kong’s unofficial tourism ambassadors
Users of Twitter’s live-streaming app have attracted thousands of followers for their broadcasts about places and daily life in Hong Kong. It’s something the tourism board ‘should be all over’ as it seeks to reverse a drop in visitor numbers, one scoper says
A small community of Hongkongers armed with mobile phones is giving the world unique perspectives on the city. The dedicated users of Periscope, Twitter’s popular live-streaming app, have inadvertently become unofficial tourism ambassadors for Hong Kong - at a time when the Hong Kong Tourism Board is seeking to reverse a drop in visitor numbers.
Last month, seven “scopers” visited Lantau Island to broadcast from locations including Disneyland, Tai O and the Big Buddha. Each attracts hundreds of viewers from around the world who are fascinated by everyday facets of the city’s life, from public transport to markets, local food and bustling street life.
SEE ALSO: Wish you were here? How live-streaming apps like Meerkat, Periscope can revolutionise your holiday experience
American Andrew Leyden, whose handle is @PenguinSix, was probably Hong Kong’s first scoper and has more than 26,000 followers. He was on The Peak the day Periscope launched in March, when staff at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters were observing how it was being adopted worldwide.
“Suddenly they had this panoramic view of Hong Kong, and it awed them that they’d gone all the way over to Asia. So they made me their featured video in the first week,” he says.
His most popular Periscope came after it was reported Alibaba’s Jack Ma may have bought a house on Barker Road, on The Peak, which Leyden walks past every day.
“I said, ‘This is a house that cost US$193 million, and I had 400 or 500 viewers in the first minute,” says Leyden, who scopes daily on his informative walkabouts, visiting everything from second world war sites to shopping malls.