Invite colleagues
The Hong Kong Tourism Board released figures that show the Chinese mainland visitors has become the highest value spenders for inbound tourism contributing HK$83.5 billion or close to 70% of Hong Kong's total visitor spending. In terms of per capita spending, both overnight and same day visitors from Mainland China enjoyed double-digit growth at 17% and 10% respectively.
As reported by Adaline Lau in Marketing Interactive , mid last year, the HKTB collaborated with Yahoo to roll out an aggressive two-month campaign to lure mainland and short-haul tourists. The tourism board spent up to HK$60 million for its "Hong Kong Summer Spectacular" campaign, with a mixture of online and offline advertising and a series of events.
The tourism board also invited 300 mainland and overseas media to promote Hong Kong in their features and programmes, with Shanghai Oriental Television among the media to shoot an entertainment programme in Hong Kong about clothing and design. MTR also launched Mapgazine, a free monthly publication targeting Mainland tourists featuring a list of suggested itineraries, shopping outlets, hotels and dining last year.
Despite the global economic downturn, total expenditure for inbound tourism increased by more than 3% year-on-year up to HK$163 billion in 2009. James Tien, chairman for HKTB explained "The key driver was the greater number of Mainland visitors and their higher spending, as led by the Mainland's robust economic growth and the implementation of measures to facilitate individual visits by Shenzhen residents."
The 'Summer Spectacular' campaign last year also resulted in notable growth in per capita spending of same day visitors from other short haul market regions. Taiwan enjoyed the highest growth in tourism spending for same day visitors at more than 111%, followed by South and Southeast Asia (54%) and Macau (49%).
Shopping continued to grab the largest share of spending among overnight (64%) and same day (88%) visitors in 2009 with total spending on shopping increased by more than 17% to HK$82 billion. While average spending by overnight visitors per capita is at HK$5,800, Mainland China visitors spent about HK$48,800 on shopping alone with same day spending at $17,800 compared to average visitors at just $1,800 per capita. Tien is positive the situation will improve this year along with the continued recovery of the global economy and better travel sentiments in major source markets giving a further boost to the total tourism receipts for 2010.
Good story, Adaline
Additional Sources: Marketing Interactive
Written on Wednesday, 28 April 2010 13:13 by Matt McDougall
