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Cover Story
Station" in Central District (i.e. the former Central Police Station
Compound) into a cultural tourism attraction and rejuvenating
the historical trail of Dr. Sun Yat-sen with interactive elements via
mobile applications. The West Kowloon Cultural District will also
be opening various iconic art performance venues and facilities
including M+ museum and Xiqu Centre, which will further
enhance our tourism appeal to visitors around the world.
(4) Mega events to draw more high spending visitors
Fourth, the holding of mega events is well proven to be effective
in attracting high spending visitors. True to our reputation as
the "Events capital of Asia", we continue to play host to a series
of mega events to enrich visitors' travel experience and raise
Hong Kong's international profile. We will step up promotion
of signature events like Art Basel, Rugby Seven, and scale up the
highly popular Wine and Dine Festival. To add fun and vibrancy
to Hong Kong's gourmet landscape, the 16 selected food trucks
will come on board in the next few months and the public will
be able to taste for themselves the food delicacy at various
tourist hotspots and events. Branded under the "Hong Kong
Sports Month" campaign in the past few weeks, we successfully
hosted many spectacular sports events, including the Hong
Kong Cyclothon, Hong Kong Tennis Open, Boxing, Hong Kong
Triathlon, Harbour Race and the Formula E Championship. In
particular, the maiden Formula E race in Hong Kong last week
was highly impressive and popular, with a remarkably high
proportion of its patronage being overseas visitors at 25%. In
preparing for the event, apart from coordinating efforts of all
Government deparmtents concerned, the Tourism Commission
has proactively lined up cooperation between the organiser,
the travel trade, hotel industry well before the race, and invited
the HKRMA to join the platform to launch and promote new
products for our visitors. We are glad to see participation of the
retail trade such as shopping malls in providing combo products
for tourists, effectively turning what would be a car race only into
a joint-sector event.
(5) Cruise and MICE tourism
Fifth, cruise and MICE (Meetings, Incentive Travels, Conventions
and Exhibitions) tourism are important sources of high value-
added overnight visitors. On cruise tourism, we are glad to see
a significant increase in ship calls at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal
in recent years, and will continue to support its growth through
new initiative like "fly-cruise", in which $10 million has been
allocated to provide incentives for the trade in developing
itineraries in Hong Kong before or after the cruise trip to bring
more overnight visitors to benefit our hotel and retail trades. On
MICE, the HKTB has set up a dedicated team to provide support
to the trade, including financial incentives for bringing in more
MICE tours into Hong Kong.
(6) A clear roadmap on tourism infrastructure
Last but not least, we have put in place a clear roadmap for
developing tourism infrastructure, either developed by the
Government or by the private sector. In the past decade or so,
a number of major tourism infrastructure has been developed
in Hong Kong, including the HK Disneyland Resort, Ngong Ping
360, the Wetland Park and the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal. Looking
ahead, a lot of exciting developments are on the pipeline. By end
of this year, the Hong Kong Disneyland will launch a new themed
area based on Marvel's "Iron Man" franchise and a new hotel will
come on stream in 2017. We are also discussing the expansion
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