Inside Out | As more Chinese tourists stay home, Hong Kong must embrace them even more

Fireworks, smouldering fire dragons, heaving crowds, thousands of brightly coloured lanterns, waterfront festivities – all under a luminous Mid-Autumn moon: this past weekend has marked a flamboyant revival of the Hong Kong we all know and love – and have sorely missed for four austere years.

At the heart of it all, as the Mid-Autumn Festival coincided with China’s “golden week”, was the expected return of a million mainland visitors – a vital ingredient in the magic mix boosting Hong Kong’s reputation as one of the most vibrant and welcoming places on the planet, and a welcome contributor to our pandemic-emaciated retail and hospitality industries.

The data for 2023 suggests we are at last clawing back towards the levels of five years ago, when tourism accounted for 3.6 per cent of our GDP, and over 230,000 jobs. And that cannot be a moment too soon.

At one point during the pandemic, tourism contributed just 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product, and 22,500 jobs. The government’s January-to-August statistics say 20.55 million people have visited Hong Kong so far in 2023 – a massive jump from 183,000 over the same period last year. This is still far short of our peak year of 2018, when we welcomed 65 million visitors, but perhaps 2024 will finally put the pandemic years behind us.

Of the 20.55 million visitors, 16.52 million (or 80 per cent) came from the mainland. Hong Kong and Macau remain the two favourite destinations for China’s outbound tourists.