Published: 8:34pm, 2 Sep 2024Updated: 8:38pm, 2 Sep 2024
A top Beijing official in Hong Kong has urged the city to adopt innovative concepts such as esports and artificial intelligence to help revitalise local tourism as part of efforts to attract mainland China’s more than 500 million middle-to-high-income earners.
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Zheng Yanxiong, director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, also said on Monday that the city’s beautiful coastlines and numerous outlying islands could serve as good resources in tourism promotion efforts.
“The industry should think about how to make good use of the beautiful 1,180km [733 miles] of coastline and 263 islands, how to coordinate with the performing arts, esports, healthcare, artificial intelligence and coastal sports, and how to make it a top destination for leisure and holidays for the more than 500 million middle- and high-income holidaymakers on the mainland,” he said.
Xia Baolong, head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, in May suggested the city pursue “tourism is everywhere” as a concept, calling for more innovative ideas to develop the sector when he met visiting Hong Kong tourism chief Kevin Yeung Yun-hung in Beijing.
According to official figures, the city welcomed nearly 27.1 million visitor arrivals during the first seven months of the year, up 52.2 per cent from the same period in 2023.