Issue #110 - Hello Hong Kong, It's Great to Be Back!
From being "off the global aviation map," Hong Kong's visitor economy is rebuilding.
Welcome to issue 110 of Asia Travel Re:Set.
The last time I departed Hong Kong, it was by train.
On Saturday 13 April 2019, my high-speed ride eased out of West Kowloon station for the 9-hour journey to Beijing. Until last Sunday, I had not returned.
This week, it rained a lot in Hong Kong. But it was great to be back.
So let’s follow that train of thought…
Thanks for checking-in.
- “IN THE NEWS”
- Hello Hong Kong, It’s Great to Be Back!
From being "off the global aviation map," Hong Kong’s visitor economy is rebuilding.
- Bali’s Tourism Bounce-back Builds Momentum
In conversation with Simona Chimenti & Melina Caruso of the Bali Hotels Association.
“IN THE NEWS”
“There is a tendency to view the pandemic as a major inflection point that will herald a new era of travel. To some degree that is true, because Chinese travelers had three years to rethink what traveling means to them and how they want to spend their vacation time in future. At the same time, young and aspirational Chinese tourists were already thinking like this in 2019, so we may see an acceleration of an emerging trend rather than the start of a whole new era.”
Many thanks to Jason Wang for including my comments in this article for Jing Daily.
Stepping back on stage. This week, I’ll be speaking about Redefining Travel Experiences: Evolving Consumer Trends & Demands at Worldline’s Rise Travel 2023 event in Phuket.
Hello Hong Kong, It’s Great to Be Back!
Source: Hong Kong Tourism Board
“Hong Kong is effectively off the map as a global aviation hub.”
Thirteen months is a long time in travel, maybe even more so as Covid-era rules fade from view. For Hong Kong, those restrictions lasted long, and cut deep.
In April 2022, Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General, made the above comment as alignment with China’s Zero Covid policy kept quarantine rules in place. Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) was operating at around 3% of pre-pandemic capacity.
Around that time, I participated in a few travel panels and remember being surprised at the negativity often expressed about Hong Kong’s potential for recovery. Yes, it has endured a great deal - the 2019 street protests, Zero Covid and National Security Law. But Hong Kong is a stalwart street-fighter of a city with survival instincts to envy.
Politically and societally, Hong Kong has undergone dramatic changes since my last visit. The economic impact of the long Covid-19 shutdown is hard to avoid. GDP slumped 3.5% last year, but should record growth of 3.5%-5.5% in 2023. Mask-wearing is still widespread (and sales remain strong, apparently), and some of the city’s rhythms are still retuning. It will take time.
Rebuilding tourism is vital, as it is one of the four pillars of the economy - alongside financial services, trading & logistics and professional & producer services.
Ports, Pilots & Passenger Totals
If, by some miracle, you had just awoken from a long slumber and did not know any of the above, arriving at HKIA feels remarkably like it always did. The customs line was shorter, but that’s probably because I arrived late at night on a Sunday. Most people in front of me were off a flight from Fuzhou.
Baggage collected, I sat back and enjoyed one of the world’s great airport-city transitions: the Hong Kong Airport Express. The giant terminals peel away as the train sequences through the port area, between hills and into Kowloon and Central.
Coinciding with my visit, Hong Kong - or, more specifically, its flag carrier - made some notable headlines. CNN reported that Cathay Pacific’s promotion of free tickets were “all claimed in 2.5 hours.” South China Morning Post reported that the airline’s pilots, who are in dispute over contract conditions, were deliberately taxiing at a slow pace to highlight their pay is now linked to operational flight time.
Also this week, Cathay reported its April 2023 figures. Last month, it carried 1.38 million passengers, “an increase of 3,283% compared with April 2022”. Hong Kong International Airport hasn’t yet published its April figures, but from January-March, it handled 6.99 million passengers (compared to 251,000 in Q1 2022). From what I saw at HKIA this week, Q2 will deliver a significantly uplifted total.
On Wednesday, there were more than 35 flights from HKIA to mainland Chinese cities from 11.30am-18.15pm
So how is the city’s visitor recovery shaping up?
Hong Kong received 2.89 million visitors in April. That equates to 58% of the equivalent monthly average from 2017-2019 - which is really not bad at this early stage.
The shape of the 2023 recovery is becoming clearer. From January-April, 77.5% of the 7.3 million visitor arrivals were from the mainland, 13.4% from short-haul markets (mostly South East Asia), and 7.6% from long-haul markets.
In 2018, (a more reliable base year, given that visitors fell 14.2% in 2019 due to the impact of the protests) Hong Kong received 65.15 million visitors, 78.3% of which were from mainland China. However, 55% were same-day visitors, rather than staying overnight. Consequently, the average length of stay was a relatively low 3.1 nights. This is a metric that will be hard to improve upon, especially while many long-haul airlines continue to operate a low (or no) level of service to/from HKIA.
Travellers, Tourists & Day-trippers
There is, of course, a clear distinction between visitors and tourists - and Hong Kong exemplifies this. It always has counted a broad-based inbound mix.
Walking around Central and Kowloon during a non-Golden Week, I’m reminded that mainland Chinese arrive for a multitude of reasons, with tourism being just one them.
My hotel, the Star Ferry and the neon-lit waterfront were busy with tourists. A 2,000-person corporate group from the mainland was also in town.
But day-trippers are easy to spot.
In the banks of Admiralty, mainlanders of all ages dominate the teller lines. Supermarket as well as brand shoppers are busy in Causeway Bay. Garment traders are over from Dongguan and tech guys from Shenzhen. Plenty of people are meeting relatives and friends who live, work or study here. I chatted at the airport bar with a VC guy from Chengdu working on a deal that will bring him back “6 or 7 times this year”.
The top-line visitor arrivals statistics don’t reflect this diversity.
Source: Zolima City Mag
Replicas, Nostalgia & Ambitions
American comic Steven Wright once told a joke about waking up and knowing he’d been burgled because the intruder had replaced all his possessions with exact replicas. Walking the SoHo and NoHo districts feels similar. Bars, cafes and boutique hotels have closed down and reopened with new names and decor, but similar offerings. I didn’t see Aaron Kwok dancing down the steps or Kelly Chen serving food, though.
Some things remain thankfully timeless. Thanks to my friend, China historian and writer Paul French - who was in Hong Kong recently - sending me this article, Inside the Wattis Collection: Vintage Hong Kong Travel Guides, I was able to visit this excellent exhibition of historic Hong Kong travel guides, posters, brochures, photos and drawings at Wattis Fine Art on Hollywood Road.
Time to leave in a downpour. An elderly Chinese tourist skilfully usurps me to grab a passing taxi. I laugh and grab the next one. HKIA is buzzing on a mid-afternoon Wednesday. The main departure terminals have been attractively revamped, and across the tarmac armies of cranes are building new terminal infrastructure and facilities to support the new third-runway, which was inaugurated last November.
Hong Kong certainly does not lack ambition.
Bali’s Tourism Bounce-back Builds Momentum
“Barring another pandemic, there would be very little to derail the outlook for the next 12 months.” Bali tourism bounced back in the second half of 2022, and is gaining strength in 2023. This week, I chat with Simona Chimenti & Melina Caruso of the Bali Hotels Association about its top inbound markets (India & Russia performing well, Chinese tourists returning), plus shifts in Indonesia’s vast domestic market.
We discuss hotel metrics, short windows, longer stays and decreasing seasonality. Plus, air connectivity is improving, with Emirates launching an A380 service in June. Simona and Melina also provide insider perspectives on the negative coverage around bad tourist behaviour and proposed responses, such as a Tourism Quota.
Listen to Bali’s Tourism Bounce-back Builds Momentum, with the Bali Hotels Association, here:
🎧 Website 🎧 Spotify 🎧 Apple Podcasts
Or search for The South East Asia Travel Show on any podcast platform.
And, that’s a wrap for Issue 110.
The Asia Travel Re:Set newsletter will return on 4 June.
Until then, find me on LinkedIn and at The South East Asia Travel Show.
Happy travels,
Gary