Hong Kong should ‘change mindset’ in sports tourism to draw more international participants
- Lawmaker Benson Luk says city must go beyond increasing local spectatorship and increase scale of sports events to draw more overseas athletes
Benson Luk Hon-man, a lawmaker from the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong, said on Thursday the government needed to increase the scale of more of the city’s sporting competitions to attract overseas participants and go beyond drawing local spectators.
“But can we actually change our mindset so that, aside from drawing more spectators to sports competitions ... could we consider encouraging more participation [from overseas athletes] in local competitions?”
Luk noted that beyond the major sporting events in the city such as the annual Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, there were many small or medium-sized competitions as well.
The lawmaker said these smaller competitions had almost returned to the pre-pandemic level, and estimated that there were “at least one or two” small- or large-sized competitions held every weekend in Hong Kong.