Been there, done that. So how can Hong Kong lure back tourists?
With fewer visitors from mainland China spending their cash in the city, opinion is divided on the best way to halt the slide: a quick fix or a whole new approach
Dwindling tourist numbers, shop closures and rising lay-offs. The state of Hong Kong’s once booming tourism and retail trade is bleak.
While blame for the recent woes is usually placed at the feet of issues such as foreign exchange movements and a slowing mainland economy – matters over which the SAR government has little control – the two troubled sectors will be looking to Wednesday’s budget, with significant stimulus measures anticipated.
But while the support will be welcomed, there are some who argue that looking to government to dole out “quick fixes” in funding packages is short-sighted, and that fresh ideas and a strategic, long-range approach is required to reinvent the tourism and retail sectors.
Hong Kong’s “golden era” was ushered in when the introduction of the individual visit scheme in 2003 triggered a huge influx of mainland shoppers.
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That resulted in double-digit compound annual growth on retail sales, of which mainland tourists accounted for one-third at the peak in 2013. But the trend has reversed and last year retail sales declined 3.7 per cent, while tourist arrivals fell 2.5 per cent.
A more recent snapshot from the start of the Year of the Monkey is even more stark, with mainland Chinese outbound tourist numbers to Hong Kong declining 11.7 per cent during the six days of the Lunar New Year holiday. By contrast, Macau, which has been suffering from similar problems, recorded a 4.7 per cent year-on-year rise in tourists over the same time.