Hong Kong using free tickets to revitalise tourism industry after the pandemic

Hong Kong is trying to persuade people back post-pandemic by handing out HK$2-billion worth of plane tickets. This giveaway to inbound and outbound travellers is expected to commence in early 2023 and will be organised by the Airport Authority.

“Once the government announces it will remove all Covid-19 restrictions for inbound travellers, we’ll roll out the advertising campaigns for the free air tickets,” said Dane Cheng Ting-yat, Executive Director of the Tourism Board.

Hong Kong recently announced that they would start to relax some Covid restrictions for arrivals to the region. On 26 September 2022, mandatory hotel quarantine for overseas travellers and the requirement for a negative Covid test before boarding flights to Hong Kong ended. Now, people arriving in the territory must monitor their own health for three days after landing to check for possible infection.

This relaxation of the rules, which were some of the strictest in the world, has led to an influx of people booking plane tickets to enter and leave Hong Kong. This news, alongside the promise of free tickets, should help with the area’s tourism recovery.

In the first eight months of 2022, Hong Kong received 184,000 tourists. Before the pandemic, the region had 56 million people visit in 2019.

Outbound travellers from Hong Kong are also being better served by travel insurance providers, as is evidenced by the recent launch of an app-based product from livi.