Motion on “Pursuing the concept of ‘Tourism is everywhere in Hong Kong’ and developing Hong Kong’s mega event economy”
Deputy President, enhancing the attractiveness and competitiveness of Hong Kong’s tourism through the development of mega events and thereby driving overall economic development is indeed an effective strategy to capitalize on Hong Kong’s advantages and strengths. Hong Kong, with its blend of Eastern and Western cultures, has the prerequisites for the development of diverse tourism. From humanities and arts to sports competitions, from Eastern traditions to Western modernity, each aspect provides fertile ground for the emergence of mega events. By taking a “dot-line-plane” approach and weaving a “mega event economic network” for Hong Kong, I believe it will bring more prominent and immediate economic, social and cultural benefits through synergies. I would like to thank Mr Benson LUK for proposing this motion, which urges the Government to refine and expand its strategies for the development of the mega event economy.
Enriching the content of mega events, expanding the scope of mega events, and encouraging individuals and various industries to actively participate in and organize festive events are the driving forces behind the long-term prosperity of mega events. For example, a baking craze has swept the Mainland in recent years. Many cities such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have held back-to-back bread and dessert festivals, bringing together dozens of vendors from the same or neighbouring cities and attracting large numbers of consumers as well as food bloggers and KOLs (key opinion leaders), thus creating economies of scale. The events generate both immediate revenue from day-of-festival transactions and long-tail revenue from repeat customers and secondary promotion by KOLs.
Hong Kong has no shortage of famous bakeries. The unique advantage of combining Eastern and Western influences results in a wide variety of authentic local bakery products. If such festivals are organized, I believe they will showcase Hong Kong’s distinctive characteristics. Not only bread and desserts but also Hong Kong-style milk tea can provide a fertile ground for mega events to flourish. At present, there are already companies organizing “Hong Kong-style Milk Tea Day” events, but the number of participants is relatively small and the content of the event is relatively monotonous, so there is considerable room for enhancing the influence. The authorities can make good use of the power of the industry to encourage the emergence of mega events and festivals in various trades and industries, creating an atmosphere in which “everyone can be an event organizer”, so as to stimulate individual creativity and inject continuous vitality into festivals.
Publicity is also crucial to expanding the influence of mega events, with warm-up publicity before the events directly attracting participants and wrap-up publicity after the events creating potential participants for future events. In the age of We-media, participants in mega events, including governments, organizers, vendors and tourists, are all “publicists”. While images and text are the most basic forms of publicity, long and short videos have become mainstream, and live streaming is also a dominant trend. Publicity efforts must be adapted to the media consumption habits of today’s audiences, which means choosing different forms on different platforms both at home and abroad and carrying publicity with diversified languages and texts. In addition, as Hong Kong’s mega events cover a wide range of types of competitions, exhibitions, conferences, cultural festivals, etc., a more effective publicity strategy can be pursued.
If the organization of major events is not well thought out, it can have negative consequences. As Honourable colleagues have just mentioned, the recent response of the Waterbomb organizer to apologize and compensate for the event held early this month has also given us more warning and inspiration regarding the organization of mega events. The weather in Hong Kong is unpredictable, with high temperatures and typhoons occurring frequently. How organizers rearrange events and accommodate participants under adverse weather conditions will greatly affect the event experience and, more importantly, the participants’ impression of the place (i.e. Hong Kong) where the event is held. Therefore, it is necessary for the Government to set basic requirements for organizers to make contingency plans for emergencies such as inclement weather and to act as a gatekeeper. For example, as there has been a relatively large number of tourists bringing a lot of luggage to attend mega events recently, the authorities should urge event organizers to provide sufficient storage space in view of this trend. The actual needs of participants should be taken into account when organizing mega events.
Mega events should be linked to regular local activities so that together they can maximize their stimulating effect on the economy. In Singapore, during the Taylor SWIFT concert, a series of themed activities were launched by business operators, covering various aspects such as hotels, dining and shopping, so that the show could generate real tourism revenue for the local community, and the result was quite remarkable.
Deputy President, I believe that this “close-knit network of mega events” will only be able to give a strong boost to Hong Kong’s economy if the internal coordination network within each mega event, the interconnection network between different mega events and the interaction network between mega events and various sectors of society are well established.
With these remarks, I support the original motion and all the amendments.