HKSAR to catapult into tourism hub in a few years

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 ◆ HKSAR to catapult into tourism hub in a few years

We've never been more confident in Hong Kong or the potential success of Hong Kong Disneyland. Hong Kong is an even stronger tourism market than it was back in 1999 when we first announced this project, remarked Robert Iger, president of the Walt Disney company, recently.

Iger's bullish view of Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland's economic development is only a sample of the vote of confidence be speaking the international business community's commitment to investing in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's booming tourist industry.

Before Hong Kong's return to the motherland, the city, devoid of any world-class sight-seeing spot or any plans to construct one, could only claim itself, at best, to be a "shopping paradise" or "food paradise" - nothing as ambitious as Asia's World City now.

Hong Kong's Travel Industry Council Executive Director Joseph Tung told Xinhua in an exclusive interview Thursday that even though Hong Kong was once so called a "shopping paradise" and "food paradise," such was only a natural development of the food and catering industry here and Hong Kong being all along a duty-free port. He stressed that the former British Hong Kong administration simply had no tourism policy here at all.

"I feel we have had a systematic tourism policy only after Hong Kong's return to the motherland. Before that, we didn't have as we, do now the Tourism Commission to set forth tourism policies. The then Hong Kong Tourism Association mainly helped publicize and market Hong Kong. But that doesn't mean the government worked towards making a policy," Tung said.

As Tung Chee Hwa, HKSAR chief executive, recently said in his policy address, Hong Kong is Asia's World City, and being one of the safest cities in the world, it is determined to develop tourism as one of its pillar industries.

As a matter of fact, now a few years ahead of the completion of the long-expected Disney Theme Park in 2005/06, tourist arrivals in Hong Kong from all over the world have already been soaring.

"But it is only when our Disney Theme Park is completed that we can truly claim to possess a world-class sight-seeing spot," Joseph Tung said.

According to statistics from the Hong Kong Tourism Board, total visitor arrivals increased by 19.9 percent to 14.9 million for the first 11 months of 2002, and total arrivals are expected to exceed16 million for the year. Arrivals from the Chinese mainland experienced an even more spectacular increase of 52.1, totaling 6.07 million in the first 11 months of 2002.

Against such a prospering backdrop, the Disney company has already revised upward its estimated number of visitors for the first year after the opening of the park - from 5 million to 5.6 million.

In fact, the Disney company is so bullish about its project in Hong Kong that it even said that should the annual visitors exceed10 million, it would consider building another theme park here. Such is not impossible if China does live up to the forecast by the World Tourism Organization to be the world's largest tourism destinations by 2020 and the HKSAR the fifth.

At the moment, HKSAR residents can travel freely into the mainland with their home permits, but mainland residents need to join the so called Hong Kong Tours to visit the HKSAR. In the recent policy address, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa said that in response to a proposal by the HKSAR government, the Central Government has agreed to study further the relaxation of current restrictions to facilitate mainland residents visiting Hong Kong, including allowing residents within Guangdong Province to visit in their personal capacity.

Joseph Tung said he welcomed Tung Chee Hwa's proposal, saying the move could encourage thousands more tourists to visit the HKSAR every year.

To accommodate more tourists from the Chinese mainland and abroad, it is expected more than 20 hotels will be completed between now and 2006 to boost hotel rooms by 12,000.