Hong Kong will give away air tickets and vouchers to woo vacationers again to the worldwide monetary hub, racing to meet up with different in style journey locations in a fierce regional competitors.
During the pandemic, the town largely aligned itself with mainland China’s zero-COVID technique and has relaxed its entry guidelines months slower than rivals resembling Singapore, Japan and Taiwan.
Even after it reopened its border with mainland China in January, tourism restoration was sluggish.
On Wednesday, Chief Executive John Lee launched a tourism marketing campaign, Hello Hong Kong, saying the town would provide 500,000 free air tickets to welcome vacationers from all over the world.
“Hong Kong is now seamlessly connected to the mainland of China and the whole international world and there will be no isolation, no quarantine,” he stated at a ceremony.
“This is the perfect timing for tourists, business travellers and investors from near and far to come and say, ‘Hello, Hong Kong’.”
Visitors might additionally get pleasure from particular presents and vouchers amongst different incentives within the metropolis, Lee stated.
Hong Kong obtained 56 million guests in 2019 – greater than seven instances its inhabitants – earlier than the pandemic started.
But its strict COVID-19 restrictions have been protecting guests away over the previous three years, devastating the tourism sector and its economic system.
The metropolis’s GDP final yr fell 3.5 per cent from 2021, in response to the federal government’s provisional information.
In the previous few months, it lastly dropped its obligatory lodge quarantine rule and PCR exams for incoming travellers, leading to a slight enhance in arrival figures.
Still, its 2022 customer numbers had been only one per cent of the 2019 degree.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
