Cover Story
|
plan of the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort with The Walt Disney
Company. As regards the Ocean Park, it is developing an all-
weather indoor cum outdoor waterpark for completion in late
2018, as well as two new hotels for completion next year and in
2020 respectively. Looking further beyond on the timeline, we
are actively planning for developments concerning the Tourism
Node of Kai Tak Fantasy and Lantau with a view to developing
these two strategic locations into new tourism attractions.
Government's support measures producing results
We are glad that our measures have begun to bear fruits. Non-
mainland arrivals reverted from an annual decline of 0.9%
in 2015 to an increase of 3.4% year-on-year in the first eight
months of 2016. Overnight non-Mainland arrivals also grew
by 6.6%. This is encouraging as the per capita spending of
overnight non-Mainland arrivals is about 20% higher than that
of Mainland arrivals coming under the "multiple entry" permits
or "one trip per week" permits. In the National Day holidays just
passed, we have also seen an increase of 7.5% in the total visitor
arrivals to Hong Kong.
This has shown that Hong Kong, with its strengths and diversity
as a tourism destination, has its unique attractiveness to tourists
around the world.
Support for the retail industry
Our support is certainly not limited to the tourism industry. With
Government's funding support, the HKTB rolled out several
rounds of spending-stimulation promotion last year to the
benefits of the retail and catering trades, including the Happy@
hongkong Super JETSO campaign and the Hong Kong Summer
Fun. This year, HKTB jointly launched a retail booster marketing
campaign with the Quality Tourism Services Association to drive
more visitors and stimulate spending in Hong Kong. Various
Government funding schemes and loan guarantee schemes
are in place to support the retail industry. There is also the $50
million Retail Technology Adoption Assistance Scheme to enable
our retail industry to capitalize on opportunities offered by
e-commerce.
Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen, we have good foundation as a tourism
destination and as I have just outlined, the Government, together
with the travel trade, will continue to spare no effort to further
strengthen our fundamentals. While the roads ahead may still
look murky, we have seen some signs of turning tides lately. Our
visitor mix has started to become more diversified, with robust
growth in the Southeast Asian markets. Our costs like hotel rate
have come down a bit, which enhances our competitiveness.
Latest visitor arrivals trend suggests that the pressure from a
slowdown of inbound tourism has been reducing.
Nonetheless, while there are reasons for us to be cautiously
optimistic about the longer term outlook of our tourism industry,
there is no room to underestimate the challenges ahead. But
as in all troughs of previous business cycles, with the concerted
efforts of all concerned and the "can do" spirit of Hong Kongers, I
am confident that we can ride out the difficult times together in
stronger and better shape.
Thank you very much.
13
