Hong Kong Tourism Board Chairman YK Pang, right, speaks to Straight Talk's Eugene Chan, Jan 3, 2023. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Hong Kong Tourism Board chairperson YK Pang is on the show this week. As Hong Kong gradually opens up to the world and to the mainland, Dr Pang says the HKTB is in touch with different stakeholders including airlines, hotels, those in F&B etc. to properly capture the growth. He says he's confident in Hong Kong building up capacity gradually.
Check out the full transcript of TVB’s Straight Talk host Dr Eugene Chan’s interview with Dr YK Pang:
Chan: Happy New Year and welcome to the first Straight Talk in 2023 with Eugene Chan! Our guest this evening is Dr YK Pang, the chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Dr Pang has extensive experience in the commercial sector. He is the deputy managing director of Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited, a Fortune Global 500 company. He has also dedicated himself to public service and has been recognized by the Hong Kong SAR government for this. He currently chairs the Executive Committee of the Employers Federation of Hong Kong. This evening, our question to Dr Pang is: is Hong Kong ready for the return of tourists? Welcome, YK!
Pang: Happy New Year, Eugene!
Chan: Thank you for coming. Well, a lot has happened in the last week. We read in the news that the Chinese mainland is set to open the borders by Jan 8. It is a great topic to discuss for the first show, because this is something that we've been waiting for: the relaxation of epidemic measures in both mainland and Hong Kong. But before we go there, can you tell us what is the current landscape for tourism in Hong Kong?
Pang: Well, tourism is actually a very important pillar of our economy, although in GDP terms, it accounts for only about four and a half percent. So, that is a reflection of how the GDP calculations are made. But in reality, and on the ground, it employs directly and indirectly up to about 800,000 people in Hong Kong, in the retail sector, in the dining sector, the hotels, the entire tourism sector. So, a lot of families depend on tourism for their livelihood. Also, you know, tourism is something that is part of Hong Kong's soul. People come to Hong Kong, visit Hong Kong and understand our city.
Chan: You mean, you kind of have told us why tourism is so important in Hong Kong, apart from our livelihood. Also, this is what Hong Kong is about, isn't it, services and businesses. In the last three years, we saw that the number of visitor arrivals has plummeted from 55 million in 2019 to 3.6 million in 2020. And further to a mere 100,000 people in 2021. We know this is solely due to the COVID border restrictions. So, now that this has been removed, there's no reason why these figures will not bounce back. Do you agree?
Pang: I'm very confident that these figures will bounce back. Hong Kong has always been a magnet for people from all parts of Asia and all around the world. And I think we can regain that position again.
Chan: Yes. Are you certain of this?
Pang: I'm very certain.
Chan: Right. Would there be any unknowns that might have influences to what will happen in terms of pace?
Pang: Well, I think the pace will depend on many factors, it will depend on things like the availability of transportation; the airlines need to gear up. Our own tourism industry also needs to gear up. During these few years of the pandemic, many people have left the trade and found other jobs. So, we need to bring back people into this industry and regain our capacity to serve.
Chan: Right, YK. You know, in our shows, if you've been watching, we have talked about … there have been a lot of geopolitical tensions over the last couple of years. And some countries have actually set entry restrictions or conditions, to travelers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao, just waiting from this early announcement of our relaxing the border curbs. So, do you expect this to have any effect on the attractiveness of Hong Kong because people worry that we are being sort of a bit infected, so to speak?
Pang: I think in the beginning, there will be visitors who are worried about this, and it's obviously a real concern for many people. But I think time will clearly tell people that Hong Kong is a safe place. We, in fact, have a lot of very strict hygiene measures in Hong Kong. In fact, the Tourism Board had worked with the trade to implement a lot of very strict hygiene control protocols for all of the people in the trade to tell our visitors that in fact, Hong Kong is a very safe place, and that you are not likely to get infected in Hong Kong.
Chan: Alright, YK. I've also studied your website. If you've looked at the pre-COVID figures, we saw that almost 80 percent of our tourists are from the mainland, and, say more than half of the daily visitors, make up the majority of the visitors. So, they are a very valuable asset to the Hong Kong tourism industry. But do you think this will sort of put all our eggs into one basket? The reason why I brought this up is that, Chairman, Starry Lee has led three business delegations to visit five ASEAN countries. And it seems like they are quite responsive to the visits. And they also want to come to Hong Kong. So, will the Tourism Board also consider putting some of our promotions to their partner in the region?
Pang: We always have. In fact, we have offices set up in ASEAN countries and also all around the world. And we promote both tourists from all around the world, as well as from the mainland. The reason the mainland accounts for a large proportion of visitors is that we are just next door, the transportation links are so convenient. We have trains, we have, you know, ferries, we can basically walk across the border. And so that means that we are so available and we are just connected to the mainland very directly. For the other countries, they need to come by air. Therefore, the number of flights, the averages, our airports and their airports all need to be connected together with enough flights for them to bring them here. But we are very confident that as the pandemic subsides and people regain confidence to travel again, they will want to come to Hong Kong and also through Hong Kong as a conduit into the Greater Bay Area.
Hong Kong Tourism Board Chairman YK Pang attends the Straight Talk show on TVB, Jan 3, 2023. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Chan: Right. So, Chairman, we had touched on the snapshot on the current landscape. So, basically, you're very confident things will come back. And let's look at properly predicted pace because we have to be getting prepared. If you look at this past history, look at Hong Kong when you see the border being open, you see a lot of people start to consider travelling, especially when it comes to “0+3” arrangement. Many friends or business associates start to travel. So, actually, there's a travel website saying that there has been a surge of airlines from Hong Kong to the mainland increased by 500 percent, as soon as the mainland says that we will announce the rollback of the travel restrictions. So, do you expect a rapid bounce back of inbound visitors to Hong Kong from the mainland?
Pang: I think there'll be a gradual bounce back. It won't be a V shaped recovery. There are many reasons for that. I think first of all, we are still waiting to hear from our chief secretary on what the measures would be in terms of the opening up of the border between Hong Kong and the mainland. I think also for our mainland friends, they also need time to, you know, re-establish their own travel patterns and come back, you know, to visit not only Hong Kong but also other countries. So, I think that the experience from many overseas markets is that the rebound is gradual and will take time, but it will rebound for sure.
Chan: I know Fanny Yeung, the executive director of the Travel Industry Council, said the tourism industry could rebound to 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels by the third quarter 2023. Do you share her confidence?
Pang: Well, I think, you know, I don't have a crystal ball. I hope that, you know, we will rebound as quickly as possible. I hope that our economy will benefit from it. And I also hope that people will come to Hong Kong and tell great stories about it. I think for the last three years, we've basically been very isolated, as you said just now, and people don't really understand how resilient and how vibrant Hong Kong continues to be. And so, I would like to throw the doors open to as many visitors as possible from not only in the mainland, but from all around the world, for them to come to Hong Kong, experience Hong Kong for themselves, see what we've been doing and what have we become, and then go back and tell all their friends and families through their social media posts and also through direct word of mouth.
Chan: You know, some people have said Hong Kong has been slow in terms of opening up at getting a sort of normalized life. Do you think this still makes Hong Kong attractive because it used to be the place to go? But now, at least for the last six or nine months, people have been travelling to other places. So, are we still attractive?
Pang: I think we're still attractive. I think our government has tried very hard to strike a balance between the health and safety of many of the people in Hong Kong, especially the elderly. And for many people, we all want to travel faster, earlier, and the sooner the better. But I think though, now that we've removed most of the travel restrictions, I think that, you know, we can renormalize our lives. And I'm very, very certain that even though we're a little bit later than many other countries, people still want to come to Hong Kong because we have many attractions, and many reasons for them to come to Hong Kong.
Chan: Alright, YK. Since you've been optimistic, I'm sure the viewers are very excited. But for them to come they have to come by air... majority will come by air. And I know Cathay Pacific had been trying to bring up their capacity to a third of it by the end of last year. And both Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Express – our main carriers – say they would bring that up to about 90 percent hopefully by the end of this year. So, is this going to hinder the actual development because it'll be like two years like 2024 before it's fully recovered in terms of capacity? How do you anticipate will be our issue?
Pang: Well, I think that both our own, you know, local airlines, and that includes a new one called GBA Airlines and as well as Hong Kong airline as well, you know, we'll bring back capacity as soon as they can, because it's in the interest to do so, to serve Hong Kong. And also obviously, you know, financially, it makes sense for them to do so. And taking time to bring capacity up is not something that's unique to Hong Kong. It's the same trend from all over the world in other countries. Other than our own home-based airlines, there are also a lot of international airlines and all the other countries that also fly to Hong Kong, and also our mainland based carriers. So, there's a huge number of airlines, a huge number of connections to all cities in the world. And I'm sure that they'll be re-establishing those as soon as they can. Obviously, with the crewing and capacity in mind, I'm very confident that this will happen.
Chan: Right? Just make a quick amendment: it should be 70 percent by the end of 2023. So, it's still to us, not to full capacity, isn't it? But you think it will be alright.
Pang: It will take time, but I think capacity will increase as soon as it's physically able to do so I think the airlines will do their best to increase capacity.
Chan: Right. And apart from that, let's look at the actual economic outlook. You know that the global economic activity, you've been in business, is slowing down. And basically, inflation is rising worldwide and the UK is kind of in recession. So, how all these factors could affect Hong Kong, because we are pegged to the US dollar. So, “we are more expensive” compared to other cities. Do you think we are still attractive?
Pang: I think so. Now, the economic outlook definitely is a factor. And it will probably discourage certain travelers who are more on a budget from visiting places where the currency is high, like Hong Kong. But I think if we decide to travel to places like, you know, Paris, or you know, to Rome, or to Tokyo, we're not thinking about these places being the cheapest places to go to, in fact, we're going there because the experience is so desirable, and, so, interesting. The food, culture, or the local environment is so much more fun, that we will go anyway and spend the money. So, it's never about how much money but it's of how great value the experience is. And I think that Hong Kong can provide tremendous value. Now to do so, we all need to work together. I know that tourism is something that sometimes people feel, oh, you know, too many visitors and so on. And we'll try to work through the trade in the future to manage how the tourists spread out around Hong Kong, not be focus and concentrate in any one particular area at any one time. I think we have a host of different experiences other than shopping and dining, which are our core products to attract visitors from all over Hong Kong. And we want to spread, basically, the tourism dollar to as many sectors of our economy as possible, and to give as many jobs and employment to people in Hong Kong as possible.
Chan: Right, Chairman. Let's go to a break now. But stay with us viewers. We will be right back.
Chan: Welcome back! Dr YK Pang, the chairman of our Tourism Board is with us this evening. And we have been talking about how prepared Hong Kong is for the return of tourists. So, chairman, in the first half we have touched on the snapshot of Hong Kong tourism, how important it is, and then you have shown great confidence in the gradual comeback for Hong Kong, and even with the capacity, you think it will be all right. Let’s look at Hong Kong to look at how ready are we for opening up this border. So, let’s anticipate when the tourists arrive, and hopefully they will be greeted with the same vibrant, if not more, vibrant Hong Kong. So, do we have any new products or experience that your board has in store for our tourists?
Pang: Hong Kong actually has a lot of product and experiences for our tourists. You know during the pandemic, one of the things that we did was actually to entice our own population to be a tourist in Hong Kong. This is one of the easy tasks because people don’t go from Shatin and stay in Central; or people who are in Central go and stay in Tai Po. That doesn’t normally happen. This happens perhaps in Japan; you are from Osaka, you go to Tokyo; Tokyo to Hokkaido. But not like in Hong Kong. But at its peak during our staycation promotions to help support the trade, the hotels that were not doing quarantine actually had about 60 percent occupancy, and they achieved this by creating a combination of products and experiences. Other than the room and the dining, they had a lot of interesting experiences to make the hotels attractive to the local Hong Kong visitors. And so, this is a product that the hotels have created, which they can now use to also attract visitors to Hong Kong in the future and make Hong Kong interesting. You know we have the M+ Museum, a new creation that only opened about not only for a year; we have the Palace Museum, very recently opened; and we are going to have the East Kowloon Cultural Center; we have the Kai Tak Sports Park. These are all new facilities. Look at our waterfront, the waterfront walk on both Hong Kong Island and also on the Kowloon side. And these have been extended and also beautified. Disney has already new attractions … our Hong Kong Disneyland has its own unique attractions, different from all other Disneylands in the world. Our Ocean Park Water World has also recently opened – another interesting attraction. We have new cycling tracks, and we are also upgrading many of our facilities. We have our Xiqu Centre and all the cultural performance all over Hong Kong. And so, we have so much to offer to our visitors. The Tourism Board has been creating a lot of experiences, you know, like the ‘Old Town Central’ experience, ‘Walking Foot Central’, understanding the history and background of the place, our West Kowloon experience, our Sham Shui Po experience. So, there is so much to offer, so much to do. And not only that, Hong Kong offers land, sea, and air. You can look at Hong Kong, you can go to Ngong Ping 360, and look through the glass cabin at the lushful view. And then in another moment, you can be on a beach in Lantau or you can actually be in a village on Lamma Island, or you can be in a high-rise of the concrete jungle in Hong Kong. There is so much to do and so much to offer.
Chan: Not to mention our country parks as well.
Pang: Indeed.
Chan: Very attractive. So, looks like Hong Kong is very vibrant. But how can we maintain our attractiveness? I think all the places you have mentioned will, I am sure, lure people to come back. But eventually how can we maintain our attractiveness?
Pang: We have many experiences to offer. Just coming up in the next few months, we have the Hong Kong Marathon, we have Clockenflap, we will have Art Basel, we have Art in Hong Kong, and of course, our very own Rugby 7s. So, these events are all things to lure people coming back again and again. And going forward, we will recreate many of the things we have not been doing because of the pandemic – our Wine & Dine Festival, our Winterfest, our New Year Carnival, and many other things we will be doing to really bring people back and make Hong Kong an event capital of the world. More than that, I think Hong Kong’s core offerings of wine and dine, the experience, the food culture, the shopping culture are always going to be there. And because our connectivity with the GBA is being enhanced and increased, and more transport links being established, it will mean that in the future international visitors to Hong Kong can first come to Hong Kong, enjoy all that the city has to offer for a few days, and then Hong Kong would be jumping point for them to make a side trip to Foshan or maybe to Guangzhou, or to Zhuhai, or to Dongguan. All have their different attractions. After that, come back to Hong Kong, enjoy our food, maybe last-minute shopping, fly back out. Next time come here, go to a different city. So, we are offering a new dimension of experiences to visitors to Hong Kong.
Chan: Chairman, I am sure when our CE John Lee listened to what you have just mentioned, he would be really thrilled because one of the tasks that he has really want Hong Kong to do is tell a good Hong Kong story. So, how are you going to tell the story to the rest of the world? I mean we are good, but they have to know, they have to know we are better than before.
Pang: Well, actually that is a very important point, Eugene. And we actually have never stopped telling the Hong Kong story in these last few years of the pandemic. So, on our website and also on a lot of our promotion materials, we have what is called a ‘360 moments in Hong Kong’ – a lot of very beautiful, high-resolution, videos and images of Hong Kong, which whet the appetite of people who love Hong Kong. We have 600 Hong Kong fans all around the world who are really hardcore fans of Hong Kong, and they keep on talking about Hong Kong in their social media posts, and also in the things that they reminisce about Hong Kong. We have foreigners who live in Hong Kong who also make posts about their lives in Hong Kong, telling people the Hong Kong story. And now that travel restrictions are now basically removed, we will be making familiarization trips for overseas visitors to come to Hong Kong, the agency the travel trade they … we will bring them to Hong Kong to see for themselves, and we will also be taking our own travel trade outside of Hong Kong to do trade shows all around the world to attract people to come to Hong Kong again.
Chan: Right. Chairman, there is also some initiative I read in the news that there will be some air ticket giveaways. I mean how is it coming along?
Pang: Yes, so everyone has been asking about the air ticket giveaways. We will be working very closely with the Airport Authority and the airlines in the big ticket giveaway initiative. I think a lot of people in the travel trade are highly interested. We will leverage these tickets to bring the maximum number of people into Hong Kong at different times of the year. And these tickets actually are for not only the international community, but also for the mainland as well. So, we will work with the travel trade, the airlines, and Airport Authority to ensure that we get the most leverage on these tickets.
Chan: Right. You know another very important part of Hong Kong is what we called MICE – meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions.
Pang: Yes.
Chan: And this has been … your figures show that the MICE visitors have spent almost 25 percent more than the overnight visitors in Hong Kong per capita. So, as you know, if you have watched our show, we talk about Singapore as one of our main friendly competitor. And they have actually signed up two agreements with two leading global event organizers. So, we are really up for very tough competitions. How are you going to help us to making sure entice them back to Hong Kong? Especially we had a lot of shows, like jewelry shows, that have been stopped because of the pandemic.
Pang: Yes. Well, MICE has always been a very important part of the Tourism Board’s initiatives because as you said just now, convention visitors spend easily 25 percent more than normal visitors. And that is on top of the spending done by the organizers, in terms of dinners and social events. So, we think it is a very important area. And yes, not only Singapore actually, in fact all countries in the region are competing for this very valuable MICE business. But I think that we have many ingredients to ensure Hong Kong is successful again in MICE. We have our airport, we have the connectivity with so many destinations from around the world through direct non-stop flights, we have our convention facilities which are so near all of the key business centers of Hong Kong, and we have a very, very well-oiled machine, which is able to organize conventions and conferences and exhibitions at very short notice. Take the last one down, put the next one up. So, the efficiency of Hong Kong, I think the vibrancy of Hong Kong, and the fact that Hong Kong is at the doorstep of the GBA means that a convention or an exhibition delegate after visiting the exhibition or the convention in Hong Kong, is able to then make side trip into the GBA to extend their business visit. So, I think all of these ingredients really make Hong Kong a very strong contender for MICE. Already we have, actually in the last few months, won a number of new conventions to Hong Kong, including the Wild Summit, which is a web 3.0 summit, first time in Asia; we also have, from 2024-2027 the Rise Conference, a very big innovation and tech conference coming back to Hong Kong again; we have the, in your own area, I mean the Asia Pacific Dental Conference; and a number of also biotech and also genetic conferences coming to Hong Kong.
Chan: Right. Chairman, in the last part of the show, I want to ask you one direct question – you have mentioned the GBA being right at the doorstep, we have the mainland right next door, which all give Hong Kong the extra niche compared to other cities. But I still remember when we have many local Hong Kong people were not impressed when we had a high number of mainlanders coming to Hong Kong buying the milk powder. So, have we learnt a lesson? And what do we have to do to sort of face this new Hong Kong, new chapter?
Pang: Yes, I think the Tourism Board works really closely with the trade, the retail industry, and also the governments in trying to spread a lot of visitors to Hong Kong. Yes, people would come to Hong Kong to buy products which they find not available in their own countries, not necessarily from the mainland, but even in other countries, people come to buy. I think in fact at the beginning of the pandemic, Hong Kong people actually went overseas to buy a lot of masks in other countries too.
Chan: True.
Pang: So, this is something that people just do naturally. I think our retail industry is very turned-on. I think they understand who wants what, when, and where, and they are very keen in ensuring that the logistics are available to provide what the visitors want, in the numbers that they want, in addition to ensuring the local demands are met.
Chan: Right. Thank you, YK, for pointing out both the importance of the tourism sector and its upcoming challenges. With all the new initiatives to be implemented and all of us being good hosts to welcome our visitors, Hong Kong will be on her way to recovery. Have a brilliant 2023 and good night!
