Blog

Events, Culture and Living Culture Tour

A gist of the blog:

Thanks to the efforts paid by the Hong Kong Tourism Board over the years, the Wine and Dine Festival has become a vivid and impressive event in Hong Kong. The Festival this year is of the largest-ever scale, with 450 booths in total and attracted exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions. Besides fine food and wine, the Festival this year has set up zones for speciality coffee and worldwide traditional cuisine to offer a variety of choices to visitors. The number of visitors this year is expected to reach 140,000, with tourists contributing to around 10 percent. With more and more thematic events establishing their reputations, Hong Kong has been created as a city for tourism, events and gourmet.

Last year, I convened a high-level tourism co-ordinating meeting and discussed about our work in nurturing and developing local and international mega events. Besides the Wine and Dine Festival, mega events that get word of mouth in the recent years include Hong Kong Cyclothon, Hong Kong Sevens, Hong Kong Tennis Open, Hong Kong Dragon Boat Carnival, Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance and E-sports & Music Festival etc. In fact, expectations of tourists around the world have been rising with diversifies tastes. Apart from the above mentioned mega events, we also promote local culture, heritage, green and creative tourism, with a view to providing rich and diversified choices and experience to our visitors.

On heritage tourism, the "Tai Kung", which is a revitalisation project at the former Central Police Station Compound, was opened in May this year. It has attracted over a million visits since its opening, which is very encouraging.

On culture tourism, the Xiqu Centre in the West Kowloon Cultural District will be open soon. It will provide Hong Kong with a larger stage to showcase our traditional Chinese opera culture to international tourists.

The recent opening of strategic cross-border infrastructures, including the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, will facilitate passenger flow and attract more visitors to Hong Kong, consolidating our position as an international tourist city. The trade will also grasp the opportunities to develop more new tourism products.

The various measures mentioned above are part of our strategies set out in the Development Blueprint for Hong Kong's Tourism Industry released last year. In future, we will continue to pursue and implement the various supporting measures, so as to enhance Hong Kong's tourism resources.

October 28, 2018