The current situation of Hong Kong's tourism industry in February

At the beginning of 2008, the global tourism industry came to a standstill. Of course, the present situation of Hong Kong's tourism industry is not optimistic. In February, the number of tourists received by Hong Kong dropped by 96% compared with the previous year, or it dropped significantly, so the tourism industry in Hong Kong suffered heavy losses in February this year.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board said on June 6 16 that the number of visitors to Hong Kong in February 2008 was199,000, which was over 96% lower than the same period last year.

According to the data, after the implementation of immigration control measures by the Hong Kong SAR Government on February 8, 2008, the average daily number of visitors to Hong Kong dropped from 654.38+0 million to 20,000 at the beginning of the month to about 3,300, of which about 80 were non-mainland visitors. Due to the development of the epidemic, HKTB expects that the number of visitors to Hong Kong may further decrease in March.

Cheng, director-general of HKTB, said that the number of visitors to Hong Kong in the whole month was only the one-day level at the peak of last year, which showed that tourism and related industries were greatly affected. After the epidemic subsides, HKTB will launch a plan to strengthen industry support and promotion, with a budget of about HK$ 400 million, to promote the recovery of Hong Kong's tourism industry as soon as possible.

The program supports local and overseas travel agencies, hotels, airlines, scenic spots, retail, catering, conferences, exhibitions, etc.

In this regard, Director-General Cheng said: "At present, the number of visitors to Hong Kong in the whole month is only the one-day level at the peak of last year, which shows that tourism and related industries have been greatly affected. Therefore, after the epidemic situation has eased, HKTB will launch a plan to strengthen the support and promotion of the industry, hoping to drive the tourism industry to recover as soon as possible.

The industries covered by the scheme include local and overseas travel agencies, hotels, airlines, scenic spots, retail, catering and conferences, exhibitions and incentive tours (exhibition incentive tours). The budget of this project is about HK$ 400 million, which comes from the marketing budget proposal of /2 1 and the supplementary appropriation in the budget. "

He revealed that the specific work of the plan has the following three aspects:

First, promote local consumer confidence and atmosphere, and provide financial support to the industry: support the retail and catering departments to jointly carry out consumption promotion plans; The business renewal fee and the first application fee of the quality tourism service scheme can be discounted at half price. At the same time, we will cooperate with the industry to strengthen promotion, stimulate local consumption, and strengthen the promotion and support of the "Quality Tourism Service Plan".

Second, cooperate with the industry, strengthen the promotion of tourism market and subsidize the promotion of the industry: exempt the industry from participating in HKTB tourism market activities (more than 40 items), such as trade fairs and industry delegations. And subsidize related air tickets and hotel expenses; Sponsor all industry delegations to conduct roadshows in several key markets; Invite industries in major tourism markets to visit Hong Kong; Resetting the matching funds for scenic spot promotion and increasing the share of subsidies; Increase the funding share of the "Hong Kong Experience Tour" program. At the same time, we will cooperate with the industry to strengthen promotion, attract tourists to Hong Kong, and cooperate with local and source market industries to promote consumers.

Third, strengthen the promotion of exhibition incentive tourism to attract high value-added overnight tourists. On the one hand, this will help the industry to win more exhibitions to encourage tourism activities to come to Hong Kong; On the other hand, help exhibition organizers to bid for large-scale exhibition tourism activities; The subsidy scheme for SME meetings and incentive tourism activities will lower the application threshold and extend to the hotel industry; Exempt the industry from participating in exhibition incentive tourism promotion activities in HKTB tourism market, and subsidize related air tickets and hotel expenses. On the other hand, strengthen promotion, attract more exhibitions and give back to tourists: the hotel industry will launch a brand-new project-"business gathering"? "Hong Kong" provides free conference packages or catering packages for convention and exhibition incentive tourism groups to attract more convention and exhibition incentive tourists; Promote the "Hong Kong International" brand