The Chinese-controlled government of Hong Kong announced last week that it will give away 500,000 free airline tickets worth HK$2 billion ($254.8 million) to tourists and business travelers next year as part of a plan to revitalize the nation’s ravaged tourism industry after two years of fierce Chinese coronavirus travel restrictions.
The tickets were previously pre-purchased in April 2020 as part of a relief package by Hong Kong’s Airport Authority to airlines and aviation support services at the start of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
“Back in 2020, Airport Authority Hong Kong purchased around 500,000 air tickets in advance from the territory’s home-based airlines as part of a relief package to support the aviation industry,” a spokesperson of Hong Kong’s Airport Authority told CNN on October 06. “The purchase serves the purpose of injecting liquidity into the airlines upfront, while the tickets will be given away to global visitors and Hong Kong residents in the market recovery campaign.”
The executive director of Hong Kong’s Tourism Board, Dane Cheng Ting-yat, said on Wednesday that the board is expected to launch the accompanying advertising campaign for the program in early 2023, while Hong Kong’s Airport Authority will be in charge of the distribution of the tickets. “Once the government announces it will remove all [Chinese coronavirus] restrictions for inbound travelers, we’ll roll out the advertising campaigns for the free air tickets,” Cheng Ting-yat said.
Prudence Lai, senior analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International told the BBC on Thursday that in her opinion the offer of free air tickets will help speed up the process of mending Hong Kong’s reputation as a popular travel destination.
“The pre-Covid status of Hong Kong represents the market potential of a full recovery,” Lai told the BBC. “However, this is highly dependent on when mainland Chinese tourists will return, as mainland China contributes to more than half of Hong Kong’s inbound arrivals and travel receipts.”
According to the BBC, Hong Kong registered around 56 million visitors in 2019. During the first eight months of 2022, the region only saw approximately 184,000 visitors.
Hong Kong’s travel and tourism has been obliterated by China’s draconian “Zero-Covid” policies, which the region has just started to loosen up. In September, Willie Walsh, Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told Reuters that as a result of the “Zero-Covid” policies — and not because of the coronavirus itself — Hong Kong had lost its position as a global aviation hub.
Up until September 26, international travelers to Hong Kong were forced to spend 21 days quarantined in a hotel room at their own expense before being granted proper entry into the region. The recently announced changes discard the 21-day quarantine period in favor of a “0+3” three-day self-monitoring period upon arrival, with mandatory periodic PCR testing at set intervals and Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) every day for a week. Travelers are still restricted from entering certain public places such as bars or restaurants during the three-day period. Furthermore, travelers will no longer have to show a negative coronavirus test to board a plane to Hong Kong.
In addition to having its travel and tourism industry decimated by the “Zero-Covid” policies, Hong Kong has also been punished by China’s authoritarianism following the 2019 pro-democracy protests. The Chinese Communist Party imposed a “national security” law in 2020 that has been used to criminalize and punish any and all forms of anti-communist dissidence, sentence pro-democracy protest leaders, and even arrest minors — effectively eliminating the “One Country, Two Systems” policy that had been agreed upon by China when the United Kingdom handed over control of Hong Kong in 1997, which prevented the Communist Party from imposing or enforcing laws in Hong Kong.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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