Cross-border infrastructure helps promote tourism in Hong Kong
HONG KONG Benefiting from the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-ShenzhenHong Kong Express Rail Link and the Hong Kong-ZhuhaiMacao Bridge, China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) witnessed a record high of tourist arrivals last year.
Data released by the Hong Kong Tourism Board showed that the overall tourist arrivals soared to around 65.1 million in 2018, up 11.4 percent from that of 2017. Among the overall growth, visitor arrivals from the mainland saw a rise of 14.8 percent to 51 million. As the cross-border infrastructure further ties up the Hong Kong SAR and the mainland, Hong Kong will further promote tourism in the Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area, said tourism industry insiders.
“From the latter half of 2017, Hong Kong began to see an upturn in tourism, and witnessed a continuous increase in the number of tourists in 2018,” said Yiu Si-wing, member of the Legislative Council of the HKSAR. “Since the operation of the Express Rail Link and the bridge, we see an apparent growth in visitor arrivals to Hong Kong.” Yiu pointed out. He viewed tourists from the mainland as the driving force to push Hong Kong’s visitor arrivals to a new high. “It takes less time and fewer procedures for those visitors to Hong Kong via the Express Rail Link than before when they need to transfer to Hong Kong after first arriving at Shenzhen,” said Yiu.
Tourism in the Greater Bay Area has huge potential, as cities in the area can work with one another to develop multi-destination travel with cross-border infrastructure, according to Anthony Lau, the executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board. He called for more efforts by Guangdong Province, and the Hong Kong and Macao SARs to forge closer bonds so as to build the Greater Bay Area into a tourism brand.
(Xinhua, Photo: Xinhua)