Hong Kong launches ‘smile offensive’ to boost flagging tourism

5 years after the world watched pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong meet with fierce repression, authorities within the territory assume they’ve labored out learn how to get vacationers again – everybody must smile extra.

Hong Kong’s vacationer board has launched a marketing campaign to advertise courtesy and good service in direction of guests, mentioned Hong Kong Free Press. Starring actors Louis Koo and Ng Siu-hin, it goals to point out “how we will all higher show the hospitality by going the additional mile with small gestures”.

However with a lot of the messaging focused at hospitality and repair staff, not everyone seems to be satisfied the plan is efficient or truthful. And the timing of the launch – the fifth anniversary of an enormous protest towards a safety invoice that allowed Hong Kong residents to be extradited for trial in mainland China – has additionally raised eyebrows.

‘Black sheep’ 

“Unfriendly” employees at eating places had been “as soon as considered as a captivating hallmark” of Hong Kong, mentioned Time, however the phenomenon has more and more been described as a “turn-off” for vacationers. A survey concerning the metropolis’s taxi service final 12 months additionally discovered that “rudeness” was prospects’ prime criticism.

Tradition, sports activities and tourism secretary Kevin Yeung blamed a “handful of black sheep” for the rude behaviour that “tarnishes our picture”.

The tourism trade can be experiencing main shortages of skilled employees, as a result of those that had been laid off or returned to their house international locations throughout the pandemic have not but returned.

Yeung has introduced a three-pronged strategy, with the Training Bureau selling programmes to show courtesy to college students, whereas the Residence Affairs Division will organise group actions to encourage friendliness, with rewards on provide for “good efficiency”. Yeung hopes that the extra smiley perspective and mentality can turn into a “a part of every day life”, making vacationers “really feel like they’re at house”, reported Says.

Lending his help to the marketing campaign, Hong Kong Chief Govt John Lee Ka-chiu requested all residents to participate, to “improve” guests’ experiences. “We needs to be extra courteous, we needs to be extra useful, we must always smile extra,” he mentioned.

‘Movie star nudging’

It is actually true that Hong Kong has a tourism drawback. Information from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Division and Tourism Board present that town noticed a peak of greater than 6.7 million month-to-month customer arrivals in January 2019, however by April 2024 it was attracting lower than half that quantity.

The restoration of its tourism sector because the pandemic “lags behind” different close by locations like Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Singapore, mentioned the ASEAN+3 macroeconomic analysis workplace. That is partly attributable to Hong Kong’s “heavy reliance” on vacationers from mainland China, who “held off travelling overseas after the pandemic”, and partly as a result of visa-free journey supplied by Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore to “lure mainland guests”. The appreciation of the Hong Kong greenback towards different regional currencies has additionally had a “discouraging impact”. 

Lengthy-haul vacationers are additionally not returning in the identical numbers as a result of airways have but to revive the variety of Hong Kong flights to pre-pandemic ranges, mentioned Hong Kong Free Press, which has in flip pushed up the costs of remaining flights. 

However Beijing’s draconian safety laws has additionally had a unfavourable affect. The US, Canada and Australia have all issued journey advisory warnings for Hong Kong, citing “arbitrary” legal guidelines. 

After extra harsh safety laws was handed in March, Australia up to date its warning on Hong Kong: “You can be detained with out cost for as much as 16 days and denied entry to a lawyer for as much as 48 hours.”

The tourism board has a “robust job of restoring Hong Kong’s attract as a vacationer vacation spot”, mentioned Annika Park within the South China Morning Submit. However “rallying a cavalcade of picture-perfect celebrities to wag fingers at frontline service employees” is “not the proper reply”.

She is “most curious to know if any of the celebrities on the decision sheet for the advertisements has ever labored a service function”. As a substitute of “heaping expectations on minimum-wage staff”, what if the celebrities “donned soiled aprons for a day to have interaction and empathise with the realities of frontline restaurant work?”