Hong Kong launches new campaign
Ensuring the destination is proactive in their approach, Hong Kong Tourism Board launched some new campaigns to keep its momentum as one of the hidden gems in Asia with uniTue experiences all year around catering especially to the Middle East market. Puneet Kumar, Director, South Asia & Middle East shares with . What are the initiatives taken by Hong Kong to welcome post COVID-19 tourists?
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has laid a robust yet agile three stage engagement strategy for local and overseas markets. Stage 1, launched “Holiday At Home” campaign promoting yearround offers to drive local tourism and to encourage HK people to rediscover their city’s hidden gems and unique experiences. Stage 2, ready to launch “Open House Hong Kong” hospitality campaign with exciting travel offers and intown experiences once essential inbound travel resumes.
Stage 3, launch of brand new campaign to retell HK stories once travel continues to fully resume.
As a precursor to welcome the overseas visitors into Hong Kong, the HKTB launched ‘Anti-epidemic Hygiene Measures Certification Scheme’ in partnership with the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency (HKQAA). Under this scheme, the tourism industry and related sectors will follow a standardised hygiene protocol to assure visitors of a safe and healthy stay, helping us establish a healthy and safe tourism image of Hong Kong and bolster visitors’ confidence in travelling here.
More than 2,500 organisations participated to strengthen public and visitor confidence in out-of-home consumption and travel.
How important is the GCC traveller to Hong Kong and what all are you doing to regain this market share?
GCC region is part of our emerging source market portfolio and pre-pandemic visitor arrivals were modest in numbers but we are committed to cultivate the market potential for Hong Kong. Currently, the HKTB has a representative office in Dubai to strengthen tourism collaboration.
To cultivate Arabic-speaking markets, the HKTB has strengthened its digital marketing efforts on social media, including a dedicated Arabic Facebook page, and an Arabic and English bilingual Muslim section on its discoverhongkong.com website, providing more information on Muslimfriendly offerings including itinerary, halal cuisine, prayer facilities, etc.
While the travel has taken a long pause between GCC and Hong Kong due to COVID-19
outbreak, we filled this time to keep our prospects, friends in media, corporate clients and trade partners updated and engaged with Hong Kong. The HKTB launched 360 Hong Kong Moments, a bouquet of virtual reality (VR) enabled video stories to showcase the myriad experiences of Hong Kong. We also took creative initiatives to introduce unique traditions of Chinese New Year celebration and recently organised an exclusive Wellness tour of Peng Chau Island to give an entertaining experience. We also updated and
Muslim travel segment from GCC region is very important for Hong Kong due to its potential of high-yield overnight visitors opting for longer stays, which create a multiplier effect on Hong Kong’s tourism economy
refreshed destination knowledge for our travel trade partners through multiple webinars that reached over 300 travel professionals in year 2020-21.
How is Hong Kong relevant to the GCC visitors?
We are promoting Wellness and Great Outdoors of Hong Kong to satiate their growing love for nature and doing nature based activities, Arts in Hong Kong and unique D-I-Y itineraries to help them self-explore to find themselves with a whole new perspective and of course later this year we will present West Kowloon Neighbourhood and its authentic local living culture to satisfy their strong curiosity to discover the culture and history of the place.
For now we are using “360 Hong Kong Moments” our global initiative to virtually opening the city to the world. A series of VR videos showcasing the authentic neighbourhoods, city vs. nature, iconic Victoria Harbour, tram ride, culinary delights and thrilling nights in Hong Kong, allows our overseas visitors to relive their Hong Kong moments that they are missing most from their previous trips and also inspire others to expand their bucket list of things to do in Hong Kong when they visit next.
Is Hong Kong looking to promote itself as a MICE destination for the GCC market once travel resumes?
We are very keen to cultivate GCC as an emerging visitor source market and attract MICE business events and incentive group travel to Hong Kong once the travel fully resumes between Hong Kong and GCC region. We are confident that Hong Kong is wellpositioned and has the right to win this segment over with its seamless air connectivity and visa free travel for upto 30 days for GCC nationals. Hong Kong offers world-class infrastructure & venues, high profile exhibitions for business networking, classic luxury & international hospitality services, customisable yet premium group incentive travel experiences and Muslim-friendly offerings to provide the extra comfort and ease to our GCC MICE event organisers and delegates.
In our efforts for business recovery and market readiness our MICE team has curated new incentive ideas/programmes such as:
New themed itineraries for incentives:
To anticipate the resumption of travel, the team is developing new themed itineraries that answer the emerging trend of experiential, wellness and interest-based travel, such as CSR and wellness. Many new inspirational ideas and refreshed experiences are curated to enrich corporate Meetings and Incentive (M&I) groups’ itineraries, and to encourage them rediscover Hong Kong with new lens.
Tactical campaign for M&I: Along with our Hong Kong industry partners, we will be curating exclusive offers and incentives under the MeetON@ HongKong campaign to make it a rewarding experience for the visiting corporate delegates. The programme will further be enhanced with additional offers from hotels, free ticket from airline, attractions and more.
You earlier mentioned about the steppedup efforts regarding Muslim-friendly options. Could you share more on the availability of halal and Muslim-friendly options in Hong Kong?
Muslim travel segment from GCC region is very important for Hong Kong due to its potential of high-yield overnight visitors opting for longer stays, which create a multiplier effect on Hong Kong’s tourism economy. The HKTB has devoted more focus to attract Muslim tourists and highlight halal-friendly offerings and dining options for Muslim visitors through different promotional channels.
From the airport all the way to Hong Kong Island, there are prayer rooms available throughout Hong Kong. The city has five mosques, of which the Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre
is the biggest, with a capacity of 3,500, and the Jamia Mosque is the oldest.
From our Muslim-friendly world-class attractions to halal dim sum and egg tarts, Hong Kong is continually enhancing its hospitality to welcome our Muslim travellers to immerse in its culture and discover Hong Kong like a local among the 220,000 strong Muslim community living in the city. Hong Kong has five world-class attractions with halal certified restaurants and over 30 luxury & international hotel chains that offer
Muslim-friendly services and some of them have hotel kitchens with halal certification to provide comfortable stay for their Muslim guests.
Along with our Hong Kong
industry partners, we will be curating exclusive offers and incentives under the MeetON@ Hong Kong campaign to make it a rewarding experience for the visiting corporate delegates
Post COVID how different will the offerings be for the guests from the GCC region?
We are keen to pleasantly surprise our overseas visitors with a whole suite of rejuvenated tourism offerings such as iconic Victoria Harbour front, internationalised dining and shopping, wellness and green great outdoors, uniquely intangible city culture and exciting art scene, Hong Kong has it all!