Additional HK$600m injected to HK tourism board for marketing activities

The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) will focus on reviving the city's tourism industry and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover to China. It has received an additional HK$600 million in funding from the government, adding to the budget of HK$1.35 billion this year.

According to multiple reports from the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Economic Journal, HKTB's executive director Dane Cheng said the total financial resources would be used to promote tourism, including local consumption. HKTB predicts that there will be a significant growth in the number of arrivals in H2 2022, reaching 9.6 million inbound travellers from China and the rest of the world. 

The city implemented one of the most stringent measures globally to control the pandemic. This included the tightening of border measures and lengthy quarantine measures. In 2021, there were only 91,398 arrivals, representing a 97.4% drop from the 3.57 million inbound travellers in 2020. The number of arrivals from China also dropped significantly in 2021, decreasing 97.6% from 2.76 million to 65,694.

Earlier this week, however, Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam said Hong Kong will lift a ban on flights from nine countries on 1 April but passengers still need to fulfil certain conditions to enter the city, including having a valid booking at a quarantine hotel. A ban on flights from nine countries, including Australia, Canada, France, India, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, the UK and the US, will be scrapped from 1 April. The quarantine period for passengers arriving from overseas countries will also be shortened to seven days from 14 days if they have negative rapid test results on the sixth and seventh days. 

Although HKTB expects the number of inbound travellers is likely increase in the second half of the year, Cheng said it would be difficult to determine when quarantine-free travel with China and other countries would be restored. He added that it would be good for the government to have a plan to reopen the city internally and reconnect with the rest of the world.

Speaking of HKTV's plan, Cheng said the

HKTB will keep promoting Hong Kong to foreign visitor, reminding them that Hong Kong is a tourism city.

He added that tourists from around to the world tend to go to countries with a more stable pandemic situation, and based on trends in Western countries, Cheng believes that they will visit their families living abroad or countries nearby. Business travellers will also resume visiting other countries too.

In addition, the HKTB is also planning to relaunch the "Spend-to-Redeem Local Tours", allowing citizens to join the "cruise-to-nowhere" tours. This sector has seen a fair bit of turbulence with the likes of Royal Caribbean having to move its cruise ship stationed in Hong Kong to Singapore due to the city's measures. It also cancelled the remainder of its 2022 Hong Kong cruise-to-nowhere season. Meanwhile, Genting Hong Kong subsidiary Dream Cruises had an even tougher journey, eventually having to wind up its operations. 

In an announcement on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, Genting Hong Kong said it had filed a petition in the Bermuda Court for the appointment of joint provisional liquidators (JPL) of the company. The JPL application had triggered further insolvency events of default or termination events under all of the outstanding debt instruments of Dream Cruises and its subsidiaries.

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