Hong Kong should tap tourism data to fix ‘blind' industry approach, lawmakers say
Hong Kong should step up its efforts to collect, share and make use of visitor data, lawmakers have said, as they discussed a motion aimed at strengthening the city's status as an international tourism hub and its position as a world-class destination.
Presenting the non-binding motion on Thursday, tourism lawmaker Perry Yiu Pak-leung called on authorities to collect more detailed data as currently the industry was like the tale of 'the blind men and the elephant'.
Yiu was referring to the parable in which a group of blind men each touch a different part of an elephant and describe it based solely on their limited experience, leading to incomplete and conflicting understandings.
'Currently, the government only publicly releases basic data from the Immigration Department and Tourism Board questionnaire surveys,' he said.
He said there were significant gaps in available information, especially the absence of outbound travel data for Hong Kong residents.
'Key metrics such as tourist gender, age, entry and exit patterns, mobility habits, the provincial origin of mainland Chinese tourists and the types of visas held cannot be ascertained,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- South China Morning Post
EU pushes for ‘independence' from China and US – but can it achieve it?
Over the same period, the European Union has held out an olive branch to Beijing, seeking concessions on economic matters in exchange for better political ties. The consensus now in Brussels is that China has chosen not to grab it Sandwiched between two uncompromising superpowers, a growing number of European leaders are pushing for Europe to become a more self-reliant force. They want the bloc to free itself from dangerous dependencies on the US for defence and technology, on China for raw materials and cleantech goods, and on Russia for energy. 'A new international order will emerge in this decade,' European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week. 'If we do not want to simply accept the consequences this will have for Europe and the world, we must shape this new order. History does not forgive either dithering or delaying. Our mission is European independence.' French President Emmanuel Macron – the biggest champion of strategic autonomy – agreed.
South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- South China Morning Post
Why China's leaders still seek a culture that is both modern and distinctly Chinese
Renowned historian Wang Gungwu's Roads to Chinese Modernity: Civilisation and National Culture traces China's transformation from an ancient civilisation into a modern nation-state shaped by revolution, reform and global engagement. Drawing on decades of scholarship and his unique perspective as an overseas Chinese intellectual, Wang reflects in this excerpt on Deng Xiaoping's legacy and the enduring challenge facing China's leaders today: how to build a modern national culture that embraces global ideas while remaining recognisably and distinctively Chinese. Advertisement The genius of Deng Xiaoping in 1978 was to see that China could not go down the road of revolution again. The word he used was 'reform'. By this, he was asking the Communist Party to recognise that the revolution had been successful in 1949; the time had come to consolidate what had been achieved by learning from the lessons and mistakes of the past. When Deng called for 'reform and opening up', there was a national sigh of relief. The idea of no more revolutions was something so welcomed by most people that it may be described as the secret of China's success in the decades that followed. What is still unclear, however, is whether the new generation of leaders are free of the idea that Chinese culture is holistic. When I talk about the quest for a new cultural identity, I am not certain whether the Chinese people have really moved away from the heritage of culture as a holistic unity. Why do I stress this? Because it is a new challenge to build a new culture that can stand by itself in the world today. Globalisation has made the world much smaller. New ideas are transmitted very rapidly. They include some of the most advanced ideas in science and technology, which all the Chinese admire and are willing to learn without any hesitation whatsoever. For many, this has demonstrated to them that globalisation has enabled the world to be one. There is a global process going on and one day, some kind of global culture that all human beings could subscribe to and believe in might be created. I am not yet sure if that is part of the popular vision among the Chinese today. There are many signs which suggest that the Chinese deeply hanker for the kind of civilisation they once had, of which they were so proud. I think that old cultural identity is truly gone. Advertisement But maybe some valuable parts of it could be recovered and given new life by incorporating new ideas that are coming from elsewhere. With new mixtures or compositions, China could build something that will be distinctively, if not uniquely, Chinese.
South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- South China Morning Post
US retailers demand Chinese firms pay shipping costs as trade pressure grows
US retail giants are demanding that their Chinese suppliers split or even bear the full cost of shipping goods across the Pacific, as freight rates skyrocket amid the disruption caused by the trade war, sources at Chinese export firms told the Post. Advertisement The move is the latest sign of the intense pressure America's biggest retailers are putting on Chinese factories to absorb more of the additional costs created by the trade war, with the companies facing calls at home to 'eat the tariffs'. Until recently, it was standard practice for major American retailers to pay the full cost of shipping goods from China to the United States, with the companies able to leverage long-standing relationships with global shipping firms to keep costs low, sources from exporters in eastern China's Zhejiang province said. But that is now changing. Factories in Zhejiang supplying the US' 'dominant' hypermarket chains are now having to foot part – or, in some cases, all – of the cost of transporting goods to America, according to the sources. Stage Group, a leading garment maker from Zhejiang, has been paying the logistics costs on 60 per cent of its US-bound shipments since the end of May, a sales representative from the company said. Advertisement
