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Jason Wordie

Since the Covid-19 pandemic ended, various “revitalisation” schemes intended to shore up Hong Kong’s sadly flagging tourism industry have met with demonstrably limited success.
Inherent to the challenge is that Hong Kong has not experienced a miraculous return to the status quo ante in place before “2019 And All That”.
A bewildering variety of “new normal” situations exist, and more are still being rolled out by those in power to be digested and accommodated by everyone else.
Hong Kong’s previous tourism advantages, and the combined factors that once brought visitors to a destination in its own right – rather than as a quick stopover on the way to somewhere else – have also changed.
11 million people visit Hong Kong in first quarter, more than double 2023 number
The city has increasingly become a day-trip flit from mainland China.
Closer examination of what brought tourists here, and how those interlocking factors have changed over time, may provide clues for how Hong Kong might lift its game. Simply trying to do exactly the same as before, and expecting similar or improved results, is doomed to fail.

International visitors go to places to experience what locals enjoy – Bangkok and Taipei, with their famed night markets, are classic examples – and not some artificial tourist construct. And thus it was in the past.
From the mid-19th century until the Pacific war years, a key advantage for European visitors to Hong Kong was the cosmopolitan aspect of society.
Hong Kong offered – for most of that time – a relative haven of stability, cleanliness and dependability in an otherwise chaotic, disease-prone region.
Hongkongers make 1.5 million outbound trips in first 3 days of Easter break
Roads were smooth, water and food were reliable, civil administration was efficient – the list went on.
A critical mass of European residents created a local market for foodstuffs unavailable elsewhere, and the climate – cool, dry and pleasant for a few months – meant that a few weeks of temperate-climate holiday could be enjoyed between long leaves by those who lived permanently in equatorial conditions.
In addition, those resident in places with far fewer modern amenities could stock up, readily and easily, on items generally unavailable in Sandakan, Iloilo or Swatow.

Mainland China’s effective closure to international tourists after the Communist assumption of power in 1949 meant that Hong Kong became a marvellously intact, easily accessible survivor of an earlier China.
Vanished Shanghai-style shopping and nightlife, New Territories rural life and tantalising glimpses of Red China just over the hills were key attractions.
As China reopened in the late 1970s, Hong Kong transitioned from a long-haul destination in its own right into part of a broader itinerary that featured China’s major visitor sights.
Due mainly to limited international flights to mainland destinations, Hong Kong featured at both ends of these itineraries in a way it no longer does.
After 2003’s Sars crisis, spending by mainland visitors in Hong Kong’s gold shops and pharmacies, and on untaxed luxury items and consumer products such as baby milk formula – not willingly bought back home after various product adulteration scandals – and general arbitrage of two customs and sales-tax jurisdictions, helped prop up the tourist trade.

Thanks to a proposed 3 per cent hotel-tax resumption scheduled for 2025, Hong Kong’s overpriced, undersized hotel rooms may become even more expensive, and therefore offer even less incentive to stay overnight.
Taxpayer-funded gimmicks such as monthly fireworks displays and drone shows – tired, clichéd “attractions” disdained anywhere above fourth-tier mainland Chinese municipalities – will achieve little.
Absent from current debates – or what pass for them – are serious evaluations of whether earlier tourism-industry formulas are now outdated. Expecting further growth from a clearly declining model by continuing to offer more of the same past offerings cannot guarantee any pathway to success.
And when Hong Kong’s natural hinterland has a few hundred million people affluent enough for internal travel, yet insufficient numbers feel the urge to visit, then serious questions must be asked about why.


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After 25 years writing for the South China Morning Post, Jason Wordie tackles the editorial elephant in the room

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Old Hong Kong

Hong Kong won’t draw back tourists with clichéd attractions. They go to places to experience what locals enjoy

The revamped Temple Street night market in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, initially drew more shoppers, but most were local. Hong Kong has seen a further drop in tourists Photo: Elson LI

Visitors from mainland China at the Neoclassical Yau Ma Tei police station, a prime example of the Edwardian and Victorian style of architecture in Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang

A street-food stall in the city. When Communist China was closed to visitors, Hong Kong profited as a survivor of an earlier China. Photo: Wah Kiu Yat Po

A giant poster in the window of a Hong Kong clothing retailer advertises discounts to draw visitors after the Sars outbreak in 2003. 

Pakistan’s Karakoram Highway – ups and downs of a trip on ‘8th wonder of the world’: stunning views, welcoming people, but landslides, altitude sickness are hazards

A section of the Karakoram Highway in the Passu Valley with views of the Hunza River and Karakoram mountain range. A trip along the 1,300km-long road is a feast for the eyes, but there are some downsides. Photo: Getty Images

A dusty unpaved section of the Karakoram Highway. Photo: Getty Images

Chinese and Pakistani flags at the entrance to the Karakoram Highway. Photo: Getty Images

Students at a school in Karimabad, with Ultar Peak in the background. Photo: Getty Images

The end of the impressive Batura glacier in the Passu region of Karakoram. Photo: Getty Images

A rockslide on the Karakoram Highway obstructs traffic Photo: Getty Images

Hong Kong restaurants lament drop in business over Easter holiday, hit hard by residents heading to mainland China and high rent

A restaurant sits empty in Mong Kok on the third day of the long Easter holiday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Many restaurant have reported a drop-off in business this Easter break compared with last year. Photo: Sam Tsang

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Travel & Leisure

Offering more of the same won’t bring visitors back to Hong Kong. The things that made the city attractive to tourists have changed or no longer exist
Hong Kong once drew visitors because it was cosmopolitan and clean. Post-1949 it preserved a lost China; then it was a paradise for Chinese shoppers. What now?


Gimmicks like fireworks and drone shows that all but the most backward Chinese cities look down upon are not the answer to Hong Kong tourism’s problems. Tourists want authentic experiences.


Tourism

Hong Kong tourism

Asia travel

Hong Kong protests

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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Then & Now

Then & Now | Hong Kong won’t draw back tourists with clichéd attractions. They go to places to experience what locals enjoy