‘Red tourism’ could save Hong Kong’s pillar industry

According to the Hong Kong Immigration Department, 766,000 mainland Chinese visited Hong Kong during the May Day Golden Week holiday, which ended on 5 May. This is close to the Hong Kong government’s previous estimate of 800,000, and it brought more than HK$2 billion (US$256 million) in economic benefit to Hong Kong.

Purely in terms of numbers, 766,000 visitors is still acceptable. After all, it has been cloudy and rainy in Hong Kong during that week, with the occasional red rainstorm warning, which has affected many tourists’ willingness to visit Hong Kong. However, a further analysis of the overall performance of Hong Kong’s tourism industry over that week reveals many latent concerns.

First, the attractiveness of Hong Kong is gradually declining, with the number of tourists from mainland China in the past year failing to reach pre-Covid levels. Hong Kong has organised various events for the May Day Golden Week, including sales activities and a fireworks show at Victoria Harbour. Despite Hong Kong’s best efforts, mainland visitorship over the five days has disappointingly failed to match its most conservative forecast.

Second, the popularity of mainland China’s “special forces-style” budget travel has reduced the economic benefit to Hong Kong’s tourism industry. Due to the increasingly convenient transportation to and from Hong Kong, many tourists from Guangdong opt for a day trip to Hong Kong. 

Take the May Day Golden Week for example, the average spending is below HK$3,000 per person, which is less than the price of a branded mobile phone. As long as China’s economy does not significantly improve, the new normal for the Hong Kong tourism industry in the short term will probably be one of modest visitorship and tourist spending.

The situation also confirms the earlier views of some tourism industry players, that despite being one of the four pillar industries and having made positive contributions to Hong Kong’s economic growth for many years, tourism in Hong Kong has gradually lost its appeal to mainland tourists in recent years and is currently facing a bottleneck.

In the face of new difficulties in tourism, the Hong Kong government has previously sought assistance from China’s central government, hoping for more mainland cities to open up more free-and-easy travel to Hong Kong as soon as possible. It is estimated that hundreds of millions of mainland China’s 1.4 billion population have never been to Hong Kong. This is a huge potential market. In any case, as tourism is a highly market-oriented industry, Hong Kong has to develop its unique proposition if it wants to maintain its competitiveness in tourism.

Based on developments over the past two decades or so, Hong Kong’s greatest attractions are its Chinese and Western cultural features sustained under the “one country, two systems” policy. The problem is that the Hong Kong society appears to have lost its way in recent years.

As a former British colony, Hong Kong has some streets that are named after British locations or people, which are interesting and unique compared with other big cities in mainland China. Since last year, street signs such as those of MacDonnell Road, Hennessy Road and Jordan Road have become the new favourite photography spots for mainland tourists, which illustrates the importance of maintaining the uniqueness of the “one country, two systems” policy.

Ironically, many years ago, Hong Kong members of the China People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee suggested renaming the streets of Hong Kong to eradicate its colonial past and enhance the patriotism of Hongkongers. They had mistaken the people’s nostalgia and collective memories for colonial mentality. How else can one explain the popularity of these streets for photography to mainland tourists in recent years?

Hong Kong’s economic development is inseparable from that of mainland China, and Hongkongers often opine that Hong Kong’s economy must be aligned with that of China’s. Interestingly, it seems that no one has thought of coordinating Hong Kong’s tourism industry with mainland China’s national policy to uncover new ideas for tourism.

For example, China’s government proposed “red tourism” at the end of 2004, using historical monuments related to the Communist Party of China as a resource for tourism and supporting the society to actively guide and organise young people to deliver China’s “red narratives”. In recent years, China’s traditional classic red tourist destinations and some new ones have become very popular, attracting many young visitors.

Occupied by Japan for more than three years during the Second World War, Hong Kong also has many red historical destinations. They include the Memorial Monument for Sai Kung Martyrs during World War II at Tsam Chuk Wan, the historic Hakka house Pun Uk at Au Tau in Yuen Long, and the Yeung Ka Tsuen village at Shap Pat Heung in Yuen Long. 

There are many also many little-known red destinations in the city that are testament to Hong Kong’s participation in the Second Sino-Japanese War, such as the Hong Kong City Hall Memorial Garden that is dedicated to 115 martyrs of the East River Column and the former site of the Eighth Route Army’s office in Hong Kong on level two of 18 Queen’s Road Central. However, as the Hong Kong government has paid little attention to these destinations for many years, public awareness is limited.

A friend from China’s tourism industry once asked me why no one has proposed to enhance Hong Kong’s tourism by putting together red destination travel packages to attract mainland China’s government agencies and social groups, since in recent years the pro-establishment political groups in Hong Kong have requested the authorities to create red tourism routes with unique Hong Kong features and promote patriotism in public and youth education. Doing so would surely strengthen Hong Kong’s tourism industry.

These examples precisely reflect a huge problem in Hong Kong. More than a year since travel resumed after Covid-19, the economy remains weak and many people appear to continue to rely on past glories. With a slower-than-expected recovery, it is timely to seriously consider the future of Hong Kong’s tourism industry.

As officials from mainland China have said, Hong Kong must constantly innovate to drive development in this new environment. While it is normal that Hong Kong’s tourism industry encounters difficulties, there must always be more solutions than problems. 

Even more so now, the Hong Kong industry players must rationally find solutions to problems and turn the difficulties into accelerators for success. As the saying goes, “The way forward is often fraught with difficulties, but we can always find new ways to reach the destination”. As long as we focus and address the crux of the issues, we will ultimately see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “香港旅游业何去何从？”.

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