As the slope gets steeper and steeper, the breath-taking sight of Ng Tung Chai Waterfalls comes into sight of Lourdes Peronace, who joins a guided hiking tour in Tai Mo Shan. \u201cIt took me just an hour to get here [from the city] and it\u2019s completely different,\u201d says Peronace, who comes from Germany. It is her first expedition in Hong Kong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in her\nhometown, Hong Kong is portrayed as no more than a metropolitan city. The\nnatural landscape is to her, as to many locals, an unfamiliar scene in Hong\nKong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tourism is one\nof the four pillar industries of Hong Kong economy. In 2018, the Mainland\nremained the largest visitor market for Hong Kong, accounting for 78 per cent\nof all visitors to the city. The number of Mainland travellers rose by 14.8 per\ncent last year, while visitors from other markets only went up by 0.6 per cent.\nWhile the city is branded as \u201cAsia\u2019s World City\u201d bearing the title of \u201cShopping\nand Eating Paradise\u201d, the gem of the city\u2019s natural and cultural sights is unknown\nto most visitors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting from 2017, the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has highlighted \u201cdiverse travel experiences\u201d as one of the targets in their annual work plans. For the year 2019\/20<\/a>, the board will focus on promoting \u201cliving culture, the outdoor, and the arts\u201d in hope of winning over other travel destinations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hong\nKong natural beauty<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding\necotourism, the HKTB proposes to launch the Great Outdoors Hong Kong 2019: Hong\nKong Back Garden platform, which aims to promote Hong Kong\u2019s hidden green treasures\nto visitors from Europe, America, Japan, and Taiwan. The five themes include\ngeological landscapes in Sai Kung, beaches and reservoirs in Southern District,\nsunset scenery in Ha Pak Nai and Lau Fau Shan, the biodiversity in Fung Yuen\nand Hok Tau, and the fishing village in Tai O.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rory Mackay is a hiking tour guide. He founded Wild Hong Kong<\/a>, a tour operator which offers guided adventures and eco tours. He believes Hong Kong is a unique travel destination with great potentials to develop ecotourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Around 40 per cent of land in Hong Kong is designated as country parks or special areas with a rich diversity of flora and fauna \u2013 and all these are just a doorstep away from urban areas. \u201cThe contrast, to have a big city, and right next to the big city, not just like one little country park, but so much terrain with it,\u201d Mackay says. \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful…[there is] a variety of things you can do as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ecotourism market in Hong Kong is still in its infant stage. The biggest challenge for start-up tour operators offering niche travel experience is to \u201cget on the map\u201d and to be known to potential clients, as the industry is highly \u201creview-driven\u201d. Websites and online review platforms like TripAdvisor<\/a> are important channels for brand building and marketing. Mackay says: \u201cIt took about three years before we actually have customers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their eco tours\nare most popular among Western travellers and young professionals aged between\n25 and 35, according to his experience in the trade. Alternative tour operators\nlike his are still growing under the mainstream current.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hong\nKong Stories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ling Ho, who finds travelling experience in Hong Kong unappealing and uninspiring, founded Ho Ho Go Experience Limited<\/a> in 2014 to explore the niche market of cultural tourism. She thinks the local tourism industry in Hong Kong is monopolised by a few large travel agencies. Her agency organises tailor-made \u201clife tours\u201d which aims to show tourists the unique history and way of living in Hong Kong. Each of its thematic tours tells stories of Hong Kong\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To enrich their\ntours with meaningful stories, the team has to conduct in-depth research and look\nfor local stories. According to Ho, it is difficult to employ and train a guide\nwho fits the job. They need to keep on developing new routes to avoid their ideas\nbeing copied by other operators. \u201cNowadays everyone claims they are offering cultural\ntours, but the quality is in question,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ho, similarly, finds it hard to survive in the market when she just started as a small operator. In an attempt to gain public recognition, the travel agency joined the New Tour Product Development Scheme<\/a> under the HKTB. Two of their tours were approved in the sixth and seventh rounds of the scheme in 2016 and 2017 respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Launched in 2012, the scheme aims to boost Hong Kong\u2019s tourism industry by offering unique and diverse travel experiences to tourists. Funded applications will receive marketing and promotion funding support for developing new tour products, while applicants in the non-funded section will enjoy official promotion of their product on the \u201cExplore Hong Kong Tours\u201d promotion platform under the HKTB. So far, the scheme has approved 39 products and attracted the participation of about 50,000 visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur Childhood\u201d,\none of the theme-based tours offered by Ho, features historic housing estates,\nand \u201cBloggers Playground\u201d depicts the nostalgic neighbourhood in Yau Ma Tei.\nBoth tours are two of the approved products in the non-funded section.\n\u201cTourists usually rely on official travel websites for information,\u201d Ho says.\n\u201cSo we try to get ourselves onto the list of the Tourism Board to get more\nexposure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hong\nKong arts stories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Suyin Haynes is a guide for Central Street Art Tour organised by Accidental Art<\/a>, which organises guided art tours and other art related events. The Central Street Art Tour features street arts by Alex Croft, Cleon Peterson, Fin Dac, Matt Gondek, Cath Love, Elsa Jean de Dieu, Rob Sketcherman and so on. As an expatriate from London, she sees Hong Kong as an unusual city with different layers of culture and wishes to share her \u201cversion of Hong Kong\u201d with other visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith each tour\nguide you get something different,\u201d she says. The walking tours, in her\nopinion, are unique experience that formulaic travel routines cannot offer.\n\u201cIt\u2019s not just people that wanna come and take the photo for Instagram,\u201d she\nsays. \u201cIt\u2019s people who are actually curious and wanna know a bit more about\neither Hong Kong or the artists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Candy Hou,\nfounder of Accidental Art, is optimistic about the development of local\ncultural tourism. \u201cI think it will be more and more promising. Tourists\nnowadays value unique experience more than shopping,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unbalanced\ninvestment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n About 50 per cent of tourists said they were interested in famous tourist spots, but some expressed their willingness to learn about other sides of Hong Kong, according to a report on \u201cDiversifying Hong Kong\u2019s Attractions to Boost Tourism\u201d <\/a>released by Youth Research Centre in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of\ntourism resources, grants are allocated to preserve new historical and cultural\nlandmarks in various districts such as Central and Western District and West\nKowloon Cultural District, and to conserve natural scenic beauty like Hong Kong\nUNESCO Global Geopark. But most resources are given to major tourist\nattractions. Some recent examples are the expansions of Ocean Park and Disneyland\nwhich cost almost HK$20 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/DSC08639-1024x683.jpg\")
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