OBSERVATION: Hong Kong’s tourism industry has been battered due to social unrest and might require new solutions for the future to attract more broad market segments.
SOLUTION: Re-imagine the future tourism for Hong Kong through the creation of a long-term vision, leveraging the city’s existing strengths, establishing new initiatives, and upgrading the city’s infrastructure.
Countless visitors have remarked that there is nowhere on earth that is quite like Hong Kong. One of the most-visited places on the planet, Hong Kong’s geographical location, unique history, culture, colonial past and amazing adaptability can be further leveraged to provide a wide range of tourism opportunities to attract broad market segments from across the world.
While Mainland Chinese visitors currently, and will likely continue to dominate Hong Kong’s tourism scene, catering to a single source market is often risky. Hong Kong’s past moniker as a “shopping paradise” may have faded into the mists of time as the city grapples with how it should now reposition itself. Tourism destinations often need to reinvent themselves, especially after periods of poor performance, and Hong Kong is no exception.
Architect and hospitality consultant Thomas Schmidt, AIA of Sepia Design Consultants Limited ponders a few initiatives that might diversify tourism and reposition Hong Kong over the years to come:
TOURISM IDEAS – CULTURE & HERITAGE:
WALKING TOURS:
Walking tours throughout Hong Kong currently include fascinating guided tours by Jason Wordie in addition to other independent operators, tours operated through the Hong Kong Tourism Bureau, as well as a fragmented collection of self-guided tours.
- Expansion: Could the Government better promote and incentivize existing and new walking tours across larger sections of Hong Kong? Could walking tours include not only Hong Kong’s urban areas, but rural areas as well?
- Referrals: Could the Tourism Bureau maintain a database of quality tour guides for referral to visitors?
- Maps: Could a new comprehensive set of district maps be created, which highlight self-guided walking tours for tourists?
LOCAL-FOR-A-DAY EXPERIENCE:
In the aftermath of SARS in 2002, many local residents started conducting unlicensed tours for visitors of their daily routines to stimulate tourism.
- Licensing: Could a similar initiative be formalized and licensed that enables visitors to have an inside look at the day of an ordinary Hong Konger?
- Tradition: Could visitors ride along with local fishermen to experience a traditional lifestyle, or observe a traditional craftsman practicing his craft?
ARCHITECTURAL TOURS:
Hong Kong is a treasure trove of historic and modern architecture that is often left for tourists to explore solo through self-guided tours. Could more specialized architectural tours be provided?
- Incentives: Could Government funding be provided to local architecture and planning institutes to provide knowledgeable institute members to serve as guides for in-depth architectural tours catering to tourists and members of the public? Other major global cities have such initiatives, why can’t Hong Kong?
- Employment: Could Architecture students at the city’s universities receive income from guiding such visitor tours?
- Art & Architecture: Could there architectural sketch tours to allow visiting architects and other creative types to better appreciate and undersand the city’s architecture through in-situ sketching?
HISTORIC PRESERVATION:
While the Government has had a relatively poor track record related to architectural historic preservation, there remain many gems scattered throughout Hong Kong which have survived the test of time.
- Tours: Could new architectural or historical tours be formulated around some of the city’s last remaining treasures?
- Codes: Could there be a major transformation of the city’s historic preservation policies that confer higher degrees of protection to graded structures, and incentivize conservation and adaptive-reuse efforts relative to tourism?
- Heritage Trails: Could new Heritage Trails link many of these scattered architectural preservation sites together?
- Villages: Could new village tours be provided in New Territories that allow tourists to visit lost villages that have been restored or preserved?
TEMPLES & RELIGIOUS STRUCTURES:
Hong Kong has a wide variety of traditional temples and religious structures scattered across the city.
- Information: Could visits to temples and religious structures be made more accessible to tourists through guided tours, consistency in printed matter, lists of “do’s and don’ts,” and other educational materials?
- Tours: Could these sites be incorporated into various architectural and walking tours? Could new tours be created around the city’s mosques, churches, temples, and other places of worship?
- Retreats: Could there be new spiritual retreats established throughout the city for visiting tourists? Could there be new meditation and spirituality centers established in Hong Kong’s more remote locations?
FESTIVALS:
Hong Kong has no shortage of traditional Chinese festivals and associated holidays; however, how many of these are accessible by and understood by tourists?
- Tours: Could there be new initiatives to provide guided Festival Tours for smaller groups seeking an educational and cultural experience?
- Outreach: Could overseas tour itineraries for incoming visitors be better centered around annual Hong Kong festivals?
HERITAGE TRAILS:
There are existing fragmented self-guided “heritage trails” in some of Hong Kong’s older districts and New Territories.
- Existing Trails: Could the existing trails be better organized and promoted?
- New Scheme: Could a comprehensive scheme to facilitate access and identification of these Heritage Trails be enacted, along with the establishment of new Heritage Trails? This initiative should include consistency in maps, graphics, and signage across the entire city.
MILITARY HISTORY:
Hong Kong has had a unique role in various conflicts throughout history which are still manifested in the built environment, ranging from the remnants of artillery batteries and tunnels along Hong Kong’s coastline to military cemeteries overlooking Chai Wan.
- Museum: Could the little-visited Museum of Coastal Defence become a hub for new tours and itineraries formulated around wartime remnants and provide new programs catering to war buffs and other interested in Hong Kong’s military history?
- Cemeteries: Could regular tours of the city’s military cemetery be provided for international visitors whom may have loved ones buried in Hong Kong?
BAMBOO CONSTRUCTION:
While Asian bamboo construction is currently concentrated in the bamboo hot spots of Indonesia and the Philippines, Hong Kong has a long history of constructing temporary bamboo structures, and of course the ubiquitous construction scaffolding found across the city.
- Courses: Could new educational bamboo design and construction courses be offered in Hong Kong to pass on this art form and traditional method of construction to an international audience and aspiring architects interested in sustainability?
- Scaffolding: Could visitors visit a bamboo scaffolding center to learn how bamboo scaffolding is created and erected?
- Training: Could new generations of scaffolding workers be trained in Hong Kong and provided with work opportunities in other regional cities that accept bamboo scaffolding practices?
MEDICAL TOURISM:
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is daily aspect of life in Hong Kong, especially among the city’s older generations.
- Tourism: Could local practitioners and therapies be better promoted to the international community to spur medical tourism to Hong Kong?
- Products: Could the expertise of local practitioners be leveraged to provide further educational programs, and research & development into the manufacturing of natural health products?
- Therapies: Could Hong Kong offer a “one-stop-shop” hospital, like Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital, and become a global center for TCM therapies for visitors from around the world?
While the above ideas are by no means an exhaustive listing, it is hoped they will provide food for thought as to how Hong Kong might reinvent itself relative to future tourism.