Rebuilding Hong Kong's image

Seventh Position Paper on Travel, Tourism and Hospitality

Hong Kong Coalition of Service Industries

March 1998

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1. This is the seventh position paper of the HKCSI on travel, tourism and hospitality, In this paper we wish to focus on the subject of improving Hong Kong's image as a tourist destination.
2. Recently Hong Kong's image as a tourist destination has been tarnished by a combination of factors, including lack of understanding of the SAR, the unfortunate outbreak of the bird flu, and the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis. This has led to a situation where, despite a substantial drop in hotel and airline prices brought about by the general economic downturn, foreign visitor numbers have plummeted. The experience of the convention and exhibition industry is a case in point.
3. In the first two months of 1998, the convention and exhibition industry has seen a drop of 35% in overseas visitors. Although longer term figures have yet to be available, such a sharp drop is alarming. The ramifications are also worrying in that visitors to conventions and exhibitions are more likely to be high-spending, recurrent visitors. Elsewhere in the leisure sector, some travel industry operators have reported drops of up to 60% in arrivals.
4. The travel industry sincerely hopes that this situation is only temporary. Industry operators will be taking advantage of this downturn in business to boost productivity and efficiency. But there are areas where travel industry operators would not be able to make progress without the cooperation of other sectors. In particular, we believe an image problem of Hong Kong needs to be urgently dealt with.
5. We acknowledge that there is already a lot of publicity overseas about Hong Kong. The problem is that the international media typically looks for bad news, and negative reports and images stick in people's minds. It will take considerably more effort to reverse the adverse perceptions.
6. The right way to counter the negative image and bad publicity is not to dwell on them but to emphasise the positive side of Hong Kong. A coordinated effort will be required if that is to be achieved. A number of organisations are currently involved in image building for Hong Kong such as the Hong Kong Tourist Association, the Trade Development Council, the Government Information Services and the overseas Economic and Trade Offices of the Hong Kong government. We suggest there should be better coordination among these bodies in promoting the image of Hong Kong, and that more resources should be made available for this important task.
7. We suggest a task force be created involving Economic Services Bureau, Trade and Industry Bureau, Government Information Services, the Hong Kong Tourist Association, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and travel industry representatives on promoting Hong Kong's image overseas through a proactive marketing campaign. Such a task force should be chaired by a government official at an appropriately senior level. Examples of what Malaysia and Thailand are doing to revive their images are worthwhile references.
8. In the short term, one of the priorities of such a concerted effort should be to launch a new advertising campaign about Hong Kong. Being no longer a political and economic curiosity, Hong Kong needs to find a new image to present to the world. An advertising campaign with an appropriate theme that highlights Hong Kong's strengths can be a very useful complement to the ten big events which the HKTA has been charged with. We believe it will take the equivalent of only a fraction of $100 million (the loan to the HKTA for the ten big events) to achieve an impact. Other countries like Singapore and Australia have employed similar advertising campaigns to good effect. Should such a campaign be implemented, all entities and businesses in related sectors should be invited to incorporate the same message in their own advertising so as to achieve a greater impact from a unified message.
9. In the medium term, in addition to the general advertising, there should also be more proactive and targetted promotion of exhibitions of a global scale. The overseas resources of both the TDC and HKTA should be make full use of in attracting these global events. In this regard we note the HKTA's initiative for an Expo for the next century. An Expo will give a focus and rationale to a worldwide promotional effort and in addition can form the basis on which to promote community interest and support within Hong Kong. While we see advantages for such an Expo, we believe it would be as important, if not more important, to have events of a global scale that recur every year ¡V ¡§Expo's¡¨ with changing themes of international interest that can become a major draw on an ongoing basis. Hong Kong needs to establish a solid visitor base rather than rely on such factors as cheap shopping or short term promotional campaigns.
10. In the longer term we believe a permanent tourist attraction of a world class status should be planned for Hong Kong. The possibility of attracting investment from top tourism concerns such as Disney should be studied carefully. Although Hong Kong¡¦s own geography may impose certain limitations on the scale of these investments, a sizeable presence of these operations will bring permanent benefits to Hong Kong¡¦s tourism sector. The government should provide every assistance in attracting inward investment of that nature.

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