The shopping festival - a programme scheduled for summer next year including discounts, bus tours and mall entertainments - came under particularly heavy fire.

Other 'mega events' planned include extending Lunar New Year lighting beyond the usual areas, a flower extravaganza in March and a street carnival in early 2003. The formal launch of the campaign - including performances, harbour lights, music and footage of old Hong Kong - will be televised on April 1.

Throughout the campaign, attractions previously seen as the domain of locals will be promoted to international tourists - and to Hong Kong residents.

From next month, authorities plan to distribute about 100,000 visitor information packs listing 18 areas and their top attractions on arrival. Examples include a 1921 clock tower in Yau Tsim Mong, the Tsing Ma Bridge and the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence in Eastern district.

The chairman of the Hong Kong Tourist Association, Selina Chow Liang Shuk-yee, said it was too early to estimate how many visitors the campaign would attract.

The managing director of Lintel Hospitality Consultancy, Richard Agon, said: 'If you're looking from a tourist point of view, you don't find anything really exciting about all of this.'

The authority risked creating a consumer backlash by overselling shopping in Hong Kong, he said. 'They have to define a position and market more clearly . . . Hong Kong is just another major concrete city,' he said of the City of Life slogan.

Jack Kivela, an associate professor at the department of hotel and tourism management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said the SAR was no longer a shoppers' paradise. 'I don't see why we have to flog a dead horse. There's nothing creative about this,' he said.

Events needed to be annual rather than one-off to attract a following and international profile, he added.

But the executive director of the Travel Industry Council, Joseph Tung Yao-Chung, welcomed the campaign. He said shopping was a prime objective for visiting tourists and the shopping festival could prove useful.

The attractions

Yau Tsim Mong: 1921 Clock Tower

Wan Chai: Golden Bauhinia Square

Kowloon City: Kowloon Walled City Park

Wong Tai Sin: Wong Tai Sin Temple, Taoist temple built in 1921

Tsuen Wan: Sam Tung Uk Museum, a 200-year-old walled village

Sha Tin: Hong Kong Heritage Museum

Yuen Long: Ping Shan Heritage Trail, including Tsui Shing Lau historic pagoda

Tuen Mun: Ching Chung Koon Taoist temple

Lantau Island: Big Buddha

Tai Po: Waterfront Park Lookout Tower

Sai Kung: Hung Shing Temple

Shamshuipo: Apliu Street market

Kwun Tong: Lei Yue Mun village seafood bazaar

Central and Western: Peak Tower

Kwai Tsing: Tsing Ma Bridge

Northern: Fung Ying Seen Koon Taoist temple

Eastern: Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence

Southern: Murray House, an 1884 structure moved from the Bank of China Tower site to Stanley in 1998