Hong Kong should promote, preserve its uniqueness to attract tourists: experts – South China Morning Post

Hong Kong should promote its local uniqueness and “make noise” by coming up with more cultural activities as mega events alone are not enough to sustain tourism in the long run, an economist and a tour operator have said.

Their calls were made on Thursday after the city welcomed “Chubby Hearts”, an art installation of giant floating balloons by British fashion designer Anya Hindmarch, in Central’s Statue Square Garden and other pop-up locations across the city on Valentine’s Day.

The installation was the first project to receive government funds for bringing in mega arts and cultural events to boost tourism.

Paul Chan Chi-yuen, co-founder of Walk in Hong Kong, which specialises in local walking tours, urged the government and the tourism industry to capture the momentum of Chubby Hearts and come up with ways to retain tourists beyond “check-in spots” for holidaymakers.

“If we only rely on tourists coming to take pictures at different places in the city, it will not be a sustainable plan,” he told a radio programme.

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“We have to connect tourists with the cultural elements of this place, and work on bringing in the community experience and interesting bits of the local lives to them.”

Chan said the global trend in tourism had shifted to in-depth tours, but Hong Kong had been particularly behind in developing this kind of unique and local experience with its traditional architecture and stores being demolished one after another for new development projects.

He urged the government to organise interdepartmental collaboration and discuss how to better promote the city’s uniqueness with industry leaders, as well as ways to benefit more community businesses when hosting the next mega event.

Chief economist Kevin Tsui Ka-kin of research firm Orientis acknowledged the economic benefits Chubby Hearts brought to Hong Kong, which he said had given the city more attention and popularity.

In branding Hong Kong as an art and cultural event hub in the long term, Tsui said the city should hold more cultural activities to “make noise”.

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He said the success of a cultural event could be objectively measured by how searchable it was online.

“With more people paying attention [to the events in Hong Kong], Hong Kong can be branded as an interesting city filled with creativity,” he said.

Last year, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau launched a fund to support applications for large-scale art and cultural events, in a bid to consolidate the city’s role as an arts and cultural hub. Each event will have a maximum of HK$15 million (US$1.9 million) in funding.

Yolanda Ng Yuen-ting, a member of the Mega Arts and Cultural Events Committee, said not only did an event have to be massive, but it also had to bring in tourists to secure funding from the government.

She estimated a key performance indicator of about 100,000 visitors was set for the Chubby Hearts installation, though she conceded it might not be easy for authorities to estimate the number of tourists taking part.

“We also look at what meaning this event could potentially bring to Hong Kong from a cultural perspective,” she said on the same radio show.

The annual Art Basel, Asia’s largest contemporary art fair funded by the government, is the next major cultural event in the city to be held next month.