“So, you’ve gone from being the most affordable port of call for day trippers with no spending power to trying to attract those extremely few high end travellers, but what with? What does Hong Kong have that’s going to get people on a plane and want to come out there when the entire concept of tourism has morphed into something else?” She wasn’t being critical, but being someone I had worked with when in advertising and knowing what Hong Kong was when marketed as “Asia’s wor

Though good to read about its “strategic shift aimed at diversifying visitor demographics”, one wonders why it took the Hong Kong Tourism Board this long to realise that budget tour groups, mainly from China, and without the financial means for even an overnight stay, bring nothing to the city except for the now tedious narrative hammered out by the local media that there’s been a “surge in tourism”? Tourism without spending power is Oliver Twisted and worth diddly squat. It

A former colleague in advertising revisiting Hong Kong after over twenty years was mentioning just how much the city- and everything in it- has changed, and not for the better either. Having been invited to Riyadh for the running of the Saudi Cup and watching Japan’s Forever Young win and meeting the team behind this equine superstar, we talked about the horse racing in Hong Kong, which he had seen up close and personal last Thursday at the bang a gong Chinese New Year’s Day