Bid to attract more overnight visitors to Hong Kong and develop high-quality tourism proposed by Chief Executive John Lee in Beijing

John Lee says ‘high-quality development’ of tourism a priority for his administration as city bounces back from Covid-19 restrictions

He tells senior mainland Chinese officials that city’s tourism industry has made a fast recovery

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(From left) Chief Executive John Lee meets Sun Yeli, the party secretary of mainland China’s culture and tourism ministry, during a visit to Beijing. Photo: Handout

Published: 10:03pm, 19 Dec 2023Updated: 2:32am, 20 Dec 2023

Attracting more overnight visitors and boosting their spending in Hong Kong will be among the top priorities for the city government, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said as he briefed mainland Chinese ministries on the financial hub’s development.

Lee on Tuesday told a senior mainland official that the development of high-quality visitor experiences was a main focus for the city.

“Coming priorities of the Hong Kong government include attracting more high value-added overnight visitors by tapping into new source markets, stimulating visitors’ spending, and promoting the high-quality development of tourism,” Lee said.

During a closed-door meeting, he told Sun Yeli, party secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, that Hong Kong’s tourism industry had made a fast recovery after the last Covid-related travel restrictions were lifted earlier this year.

Lee added that the number of visitors to the city in the third quarter of the year had hit about 70 per cent of the figures for the same period in 2017 and 2018.

Chief Executive John Lee (second left) discusses more cross-border science and technology cooperation with Yin Hejun (second right), the mainland science and technology minister, at a meeting in Beijing. Photo: Handout

Details of the talks were released by the city’s government.