Coronavirus crisis offers Hong Kong a chance to reshape tourism
- With recovery in travel, aviation and tourism not expected for several years, those reliant on global tourism have no choice but to reimagine their future
- Hong Kong should use this opportunity to reduce its dependence on the mainland and become a hub for tourism across the Greater Bay Area
The UN’s World Tourism Organisation is forecasting a global fall of 60 to 80 per cent for 2020. The global total of international tourists is projected to fall by 850 million, to 1.2 billion, with revenues down US$910 billion, to US$1.2 trillion and tourism jobs down 100 million, to 120 million.
For the Asia-Pacific, the World Travel and Tourism Council predicts 60 million to 115 million jobs will be lost – from a starting point of 182 million jobs at the end of 2019 – as the number of arrivals falls by 40 to 67 per cent. Tourism revenue, which amounted to almost US$3 trillion in 2019, is forecast to fall by between US$980 billion and US$1.88 trillion, depending on whether you apply optimistic or pessimistic scenarios.
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Hong Kong’s numbers reveal the true extent of the story. According to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, we were welcoming 103,000 visitors a day in January – almost half as many as the previous January amid the unrest that roiled the economy through the second half of last year. By July this year, just 700 were arriving every day – down 99.6 per cent from July 2019.
Less encouraging was the news that few had reciprocated interest and that no agreements were expected soon. Since we cannot wait until a vaccine is available or until infections have died out, the imperative must be to seek region-wide agreement on protocols to be adopted to ensure safe and trusted travel while Covid-19 remains at large.
These will involve criteria to measure the trustworthiness of testing and control measures in place in each country, as well as agreements on testing protocols before any journey, upon arrival, before the return trip and upon arrival at home. If the protocols don’t enable governments to lift quarantines, no recovery is possible.
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The heavy reliance on group travel focused on Disney and luxury shopping must also be diluted. If this means fewer visitors, then tourism for the future must focus on quality rather than quantity – independent travellers with more diverse, bespoke interests.
Small walking tours focused on specific themes – like feng shui, food, historical exploration or seeing our extraordinary flora and fauna – would be environmentally friendly and could have explosive growth potential.
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Every time I travelled up to Guangzhou by train for a day of meetings in the 1980s, I would finish over dinner with friends and then take the lazy overnight ferry back to Hong Kong. Swigging Guangzhou beer on the fairy-lit top deck of the ferry as it drifted quietly down the Pearl River estuary was one of life’s true pleasures.
Where is that kind of Greater Bay Area tourism today? This surely is the opportunity in our tourism crisis.
David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view