Government releases Development Blueprint for Hong Kong’s Tourism Industry 2.0 (with photos/video)

The Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Miss Rosanna Law, promulgated the Development Blueprint for Hong Kong’s Tourism Industry 2.0 (Blueprint 2.0) today (December 30).

Miss Law said, “Blueprint 2.0 has three key messages. The first is that Hong Kong is an international tourist city with the advantage of being backed by the motherland. We must make good use of the Central Government’s policies that benefit Hong Kong to promote the all-round development of Hong Kong’s tourism industry. Second, everyone can contribute to the development of tourism in Hong Kong. Apart from the Government’s policy support and promotion, all sectors must keep a finger on the pulse of the market and seize opportunities to identify, respond to and steer changes. If all Hong Kong citizens work together, we can provide visitors with the highest quality hospitality and services by putting customers first and serving them with sincerity, so that visitors will come back time and again. Third, Hong Kong has obvious traditional tourism advantages, including world-class tourist attractions, cuisine, urban management and transport systems. We must continue to strengthen these advantages and optimise our hardware facilities. At the same time, we must also explore new tourism resources, including injecting momentum and freshness into the city through soft power such as mega events and festivals, to enhance the ambiance of the tourist city to attract tourists from all over the world and create a home-away-from-home travel experience for them.”

Blueprint 2.0 proposes a forward-looking and pragmatic vision and mission for Hong Kong’s tourism industry, proposing four positions, four development strategies and 133 measures. The four positions of Hong Kong’s tourism industry include (i) reinforcing the role of an international tourism hub and a core demonstration zone for multi-destination tourism; (ii) highlighting the unique elements of Hong Kong’s local cultural characteristics that are irreplaceable and unrepeatable and making good use of its positioning as the East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange, with a view to achieving “shaping tourism with cultural activities and promoting culture through tourism”; (iii) upholding Hong Kong’s positioning as a city with high-quality tourism experiences; and (iv) stressing the importance of quality over quantity in development to build Hong Kong into a demonstration point for sustainable tourism. The four development strategies include:

Strategy 1: Nurture and develop tourism products – To nurture and develop tourism products and initiatives with local and international characteristics

Covering 46 measures. This strategy focuses on promoting the in-depth integration of tourism with four areas, namely culture, sports, ecology and mega events, in which Hong Kong possesses world-class resources that have yet to be fully presented to global visitors. It aims to craft a series of distinctive and attractive tourism products and projects to attract global visitors to explore in-depth Hong Kong’s rich and diversified unique tourism resources, with a view to enhancing Hong Kong’s attractiveness as a world-class premier tourism destination.

Strategy 2: Visitors from all parts of the world gather in Hong Kong – To develop a diversified portfolio of visitor source markets for Hong Kong, with a focus on attracting high value-added overnight visitors

Covering 37 measures. This strategy adopts two key dimensions: developing potential source markets while consolidating existing core markets, and rolling out promotions targeting the characteristics of specific segments to encourage more meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions visitors and cruise passengers to visit Hong Kong. It also aims to expand silver-haired, family, study tour and youth source markets for attracting high-value added visitors.

Strategy 3: Intelligent and convenient travel to Hong Kong – To promote smart tourism

Covering 19 measures. Directions include facilitating and enhancing visitors’ experiences and improving the competitiveness of the industry. Through the use of modern information technology such as electronic platforms, big data and artificial intelligence, Hong Kong will further enhance the smart level of tourism services and add smart elements to tourist attractions to provide visitors with a more convenient, efficient and user-friendly travel experience.

Strategy 4: Quality services for visitors -To enhance the service quality and support of the tourism industry on all fronts and to cultivate talent

Covering 31 measures. Hong Kong has positioned itself as a destination providing high-quality tourism experiences. Quality service is essential in welcoming visitors. This strategy aims to attract talent, nurture professionals, enhance service quality and improve hardware support.

Miss Law said, “We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the travel trade for putting forward a lot of invaluable opinions throughout the whole process of outlining Blueprint 2.0. The tourism industry involves various sections of services, and the all-round industry development depends on the support and participation of the entire community. We call for establishing awareness that ‘Everyone is a tourism ambassador’ among all citizens who will be able to receive every visitor with enthusiasm and friendliness and spread the positive energy and image of Hong Kong to cultivate a harmonious, cohesive and vibrant tourism atmosphere together. The Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau (CSTB) will continue to lead the travel trade in enhancing Hong Kong’s tourism competitiveness in all aspects, reinvigorate Hong Kong’s tourism industry, and jointly contribute to the healthy and prosperous development of Hong Kong’s tourism industry.”

The full text of Blueprint 2.0 has been uploaded to the website of the CSTB (www.cstb.gov.hk/en/).

The 2023 Policy Address announced that the CSTB will promulgate Blueprint 2.0 in 2024. Since April this year, the CSTB, together with research team Our Hong Kong Foundation, has conducted trade consultation for around two months and received over 1 000 suggestions from over 110 trade organisations in 27 physical consultation sessions. It has also analysed the strengths, development limitations, challenges and opportunities of Hong Kong’s tourism industry, as well as the tourism development plans of neighbouring regions in formulating Blueprint 2.0.

Civil Engineering and Development Department to lodge appeal against judicial review judgment regarding development at former Fanling Golf Course

A spokesman for the Development Bureau (DEVB) said today (December 30) that the Court of First Instance (CFI) had earlier quashed the decision of the Director of Environmental Protection to approve the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the development at the former Fanling Golf Course. The Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD), as an Interested Party in this judicial review, has lodged an appeal against the judgment to the Court of Appeal.

The spokesman said, “CEDD cannot agree to some parts of the judgment and has therefore decided on the necessity to lodge an appeal. The grounds for the appeal have been set out in detail in the Notice of Appeal. Among other things, while the court’s established practice is for the acceptability of an EIA report to be judged by its compliance with the requirements of the Technical Memorandum (TM) and Study Brief (SB), CFI seems to have imposed additional requirements outside the legislation regarding the way an EIA should be conducted and the assessment methodologies adopted. While the TM and SB did not explicitly require an assessment of the potential Old and Valuable Trees, CFI considered that such an assessment should be carried out during the EIA stage; while the court agreed on one hand that the former Fanling Golf Course was not a site of cultural heritage as specified in the TM, on the other hand, it held that the golf course had significant cultural heritage value which could only be fully preserved if it would continue to be used as a golf course and not be used for housing development; besides, CFI held that the EIA of the former Fanling Golf Course development did not take into account the EIA of the Northern Metropolis, but the obvious fact is that the Northern Metropolis belongs to a broad policy initiative covering many aspects and projects at different development stages. The development of the entire Northern Metropolis would span over 20 years or more. Individual projects (such as land development and transportation projects), according to their scale and nature, can only have their EIA conducted at an appropriate time, subject to the progress of their studies and substantial developments as well as actual circumstances.

The spokesman pointed out that the issues above involve the legal and reasonable interpretations of the EIA Ordinance. They do not only concern the EIA report of the proposed housing project at the former Fanling Golf Course, but also widely affect the EIA of other development projects with far‑reaching implications. The Government sees the need to lodge an appeal in view of the public interest at large.

Regarding the way forward of the proposed public housing development, the spokesman of DEVB pointed out that the CFI judgment will have substantial impact on the housing yield and the completion date. The progress of review by the Court of Appeal in due course may further affect the proposed housing project. DEVB and CEDD will conduct comprehensive study and assessment based on the latest circumstances, including the housing yield and timetable of the proposed project, the progress of the appeal process, etc. As such, the CEDD would need extra time to conduct the review on the scale of the housing development that was originally scheduled for completion this year.

The spokesman said, “The public housing flat production that can be provided by the land we have secured so far has already exceeded the public housing supply target under the Long Term Housing Strategy for the next 10 years. The Government stressed that this appeal is not solely for the proposed housing project but, more importantly, for seeking clarifications from the Court of Appeal on important subjects concerning the principles and legal issues of the EIA framework. The government policy is to strike a balance between environmental protection and development for the overall benefit of Hong Kong.”