Opinion | Tourism promotion should be aimed at visitors who like Hong Kong just the way it is

A few decades ago, international leisure travel was a luxury. Up to the 1980s, for example, “tourists” in Hong Kong meant mostly well-off Westerners – before the Japanese started to come.

Since then, global incomes have increased, flights have become cheaper, and flat-sharing services like Airbnb have expanded accommodation options. I recently read that young Vietnamese students are starting to put on backpacks and explore the world.

We should welcome this democratisation of travel. At a social level, it is great for people from different backgrounds to learn about each other’s cultures and lifestyles. And tourism is clearly an important source of job creation.

But there are environmental costs. Many communities are experiencing a very visible problem simply as a result of the numbers of tourists in particular places. Certain cities in Europe are now in danger, as a recent article put it, of turning from living communities to amusement parks.