Hong Kong tourism authorities are rolling out their biggest promotion in almost three years under a government initiative, even though the city's date of reopening has yet to be confirmed.
Raymond Chan, regional director for Southeast Asia at the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), said HKTB was preparing to introduce more promotional campaigns to stimulate tourism as soon as the government reopens the city.
"Thai tourists were the top spenders in Southeast Asia," said Mr Chan. "Amid global phenomena like inflation and surging travel costs, we will join hands with partners such as hotels and airlines to allocate stimulus campaigns to lure back Thai travellers and those from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines, as this region was an important market for us with 3.1 million tourists before the pandemic."
Around 550,000 Thais travelled to Hong Kong in 2019. Hong Kong was among the world's most-visited cities that year with 56 million arrivals, of which 43.7 million were from mainland China.
Yesterday HKTB held an on-site event for the first time in over two years to launch the new campaign aimed at introducing four new categories of tourism experiences: arts and culture; shop, dine and stay; explorer and play; and the great outdoors.
The campaign, entitled "360 Hong Kong Moments: New Adventure at Every Turn", includes the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), the world's largest cultural district project, spanning a plot of more than 40 hectares.
Mr Chan said WKCD is a long-term project under the initiative and investment of the Hong Kong government.
The cultural district opened last year and will be ready to welcome international visitors as soon as the city reopens.
According to a report from Hong Kong's legislative council, the project has been valued at around HK$21.6 billion (100 billion baht).
Hong Kong is one of the few places in Asia that has maintained entry restrictions as it still requires travellers to isolate for three days in a quarantine hotel, followed by four days of self-monitoring.
Mr Chan said inbound arrivals can roam freely during the latter four days but cannot dine at restaurants.
"As the Covid-19 situation in Hong Kong is almost stable with the number of cases at around 10,000 per day, we are learning from other countries that reopened beforehand and are preparing ourselves. However, full recovery still has to rely on many factors, such as flight resumption," said Mr Chan.