In 2018, Hong Kong received a record 65 million tourists. In 2023, it welcomed a little more than half that.
Airline ticket giveaways, elaborate drone and pyrotechnic shows, and invitations to thousands of influencers to visit and “tell a good story.” These are among the wide-ranging ways Hong Kong has tried to revive its international tourism industry, a crucial economic driver battered by years of pandemic restrictions and political upheaval.
It hasn’t been working that well.
Despite these efforts, for which the Hong Kong government budgeted roughly $129 million this year, the rebound of international travel to the city continues to lag far behind the tourist activity reported at most other Asian destinations. Thailand, South Korea and Japan are reporting visitor numbers nearing or surpassing prepandemic levels, as is most of the rest of the world, according to the latest data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
But across Hong Kong, small shops and restaurants have closed, luxury hotels have dozens of empty rooms on any given night, and vibrant neighborhoods, once thronged with tourists, have quieted.
Numerous factors have led to this decline. In 2019, pro-democracy demonstrations over mainland China’s deepening control roiled Hong Kong. Tourism plummeted amid the turmoil, falling nearly 40 percent in the second half of the year compared with 2018. In early 2020, in response to the pandemic, Hong Kong closed its borders, enacted long quarantines and intermittently banned flights — some of its measures went beyond those in the other parts of the world. Recently, an exodus of foreign residents and companies has threatened the city’s reputation as a global finance hub, while other Asian cities continue to rapidly develop their own tourism infrastructure. And Hong Kong locals, lured by cheaper prices, are traveling to mainland China to eat and shop.
“It had glamour, entertainment, lifestyle, the beautiful harbor. But the sands have shifted,” said Gary Bowerman, a travel expert who heads a Hong Kong-based consulting company called Check-In Asia. “It’s not just about Covid and the uprising; the whole of Asia has changed around them.”
‘We haven’t had a lot of luck lately’
Hong Kong’s neon-lit atmosphere, Michelin-heavy restaurant scene, and iconic skyline of impossibly tall buildings and undulating hills built the city’s reputation as a cosmopolitan destination that annually drew millions of tourists.A British colony turned special administrative region of China, Hong Kong was long known for its relative autonomy from Beijing.
