The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) launched a key travel initiative during the recently held Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
The Travel In Luxe Hong Kong guide, unveiled last month, is an amalgamation of luxury experiences and halal-friendly activities, which aim to grow the potential GCC visitor market. The guide covers four categories including cultural encounters with tours of museums such as the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the exploration of Hong Kong in style. The latter offers luxury escapades such as sailing on a yacht or touring the city in a helicopter, all while indulging in luxury shopping guided by expert shoppers.
For families thinking of heading to Hong Kong, the lure lies in the ‘family bonds’ feature that will navigate attractions such as Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park. And the guide offers an ‘exquisite service’ option with services that enhance a vacation; there’s everything from bespoke shopping experiences to culinary sessions with elite chefs, and even martial arts lessons.
Hong Kong is a 12-month destination, says Puneet Kumar, Director, South Asia and Middle East of HKTB. “Hong Kong is exciting. We have all the right ingredients for a leisure, family vacation; we have unique experiences. Our tourism DNA is about arts and culture, the local festivals, events, great outdoors…Hong Kong has multi cuisine offerings, from over 70 Michelin-starred restaurants, which is the highest concentration of Michelin-star rated restaurants in Asia. Every month there are mega events happening that keep refreshing the appeal for the destination. So, there’s multiple opportunities for the trade to keep on resurfacing Hong Kong as a potential holiday destination for the customers.”
And these draws are certainly raking in the numbers; about 47 per cent of all travellers to Hong Kong are leisure travellers, followed by traffic from the GCC. In order to facilitate even more footfall, HKTB is making greater efforts such as the two memorandums of understanding (MOUs) that were signed during ATM; one with Emirates and the other with dnata Travel Group. “This aims to promote Hong Kong as a destination in GCC markets,” he says.
One of the reasons for the city’s popularity is its location. “When people come to Hong Kong, they also add other destinations to their itinerary, which are extremely accessible. So, travelling to Macau is like a 45-minute drive. And if you want to explore South China, Shenzhen is precisely 18 minutes away on a high-speed railway,” says Kumar.
A good indication of a booming tourism industry is the proliferation of hotels and housing options for visitors. And there are plenty of up and coming stars on the Hong Kong scene including the Peninsula.
To enable travel specialists to best explain the offerings to clients, HKTB also has a trade specialist programme. “So essentially, we have an information hub called PartnerNet, which is essentially a place where international travel agents’ partners can go get data, get insights about Hong Kong, get the contact base off our stakeholders in Hong Kong. And at the same time, it also has modules where they can train at their own pace to learn about the destination. We keep on refreshing the content over there so that they are updated with it,” Kumar adds.
ATM was, says Becky Ip, Deputy Executive Director of Hong Kong Tourism Board, a good platform to introduce people to the wide variety of tourism options Hong Kong has to offer. “Even during COVID we have not never really stopped upgrading ourselves. So, in terms of arts and culture, we have new infrastructure you know, we have a new museum, the Hong Kong Palace Museum, a lot of new experiences. We want to showcase how people can really travel to Hong Kong in class and what they can do there.”