 |
|
| Travel warning lift stimulates HK tourism |
| CCTV.COM 2003-05-28 10:05:13 |
|
The WHO's lifting of its travel advisory on Hong Kong serves as a strong stimulant to the special administrative region's tourism sector. The SARS－battered industry is pulling itself together to welcome tourists from afar.
The first weekend after the travel warning was lifted witnessed many Hong Kongers stepping out of their homes to join local travel tours.
On Saturday alone, some 8,000 tourists joined more than 170 travel groups for a tour of the region, 10 times more than the daily number a month ago.
But local tours only account for 10 percent of Hong Kong's tourist market.
As an international travel hub, Hong Kong must also revitalize its inbound and outbound travel business to achieve full recovery for the heavily battered industry.
With this aim in mind, the S.A.R. government has earmarked one billion Hong Kong dollars to rebuild Hong Kong's image as a tourist attraction.
Jackie Wong, director of Hong－Thai Travel, said, " We will promote more international routes and attract a greater number of tourists in an effort to bring the number （of travelers） back to normal levels before the SARS outbreak."
Experts predict that tourists from southeast Asian countries are likely to be the first to arrive in Hong Kong in early June.
With the simultaneous lifting of the travel ban on neighboring Guangdong, Hong Kong is aiming to arrange long－awaited tours to the province, as well as welcome travellers back to Hong Kong as soon as the National Tourism Administration approves the plans.
However, industry experts agree that it will still take quite some time for the sector to fully recover since the SARS epidemic has not yet been fully brought under control in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.
|
|
Editor: Inner Wu CCTV.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
