Hong Kong looks to jump-start its flagging tourism numbers as visitors decline a second month
Staging a new event every month is one likely tactic to counter latest drop in visitor numbers from the mainland, Japan and South Korea
With the number of visitors to Hong Kong declining for a second month this year from last, the Tourism Board says it will review its strategies and annual forecast in an effort to counter a downward trend.
The latest figures show a year-on-year decrease of 2.9 per cent in the number of visitors to the city last month, with the number of solo mainland travellers down by 10.6 per cent. In March, overall tourist arrivals fell 8.7 per cent from the previous year.
Board chairman Peter Lam Kin-ngok said the tourism industry already showed signs of frailty - fuelled by the mainland's anti-corruption drive and increasing local anti-mainland sentiment, combined with a weaker yen - so they needed to think of more ways to attract tourists.
"Now the industry is catching the flu," he said. "We need to think of some cures to prevent it from getting to the point where it needs to be treated at the intensive care unit. It'll be too late by that stage." Lam said the board was expected to stage a new event every month.
Among 4.36 million overall arrivals, mainland visitors decreased by 1.8 per cent to 3.31 million, including about a million solo travellers. The number of visitors from Shenzhen fell sharply by 11.6 per cent to 973,000 after the central government announced in April it would restrict Shenzhen residents to weekly visits from the unlimited entries they had enjoyed previously. But Lam said the impact of the policy change had yet to be seen.
Meanwhile, the number of tourists from other countries fell by 6.3 per cent to about a million, affected by an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) in South Korea that deterred people there from coming to the city. The number of tourists from South Korea dropped by 27 per cent in June.