The Chief Executive's Question and Answer Session  (2017/07/05) 

MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese): President, Chief Executive, tourism is one of the four major economic pillars of Hong Kong. The Chief Executive has also exchanged views with the tourism industry during the election. She definitely knows very well that the tourism industry has faced many challenges in recent years. In respect of inbound tourism, we face competition from the neighbouring cities, whereas in respect of outbound tourism, we face pressure from online sale and direct sale by product suppliers. Business operation is growing increasingly difficult. In view of these situations, the SAR Government adopted a number of measures to support the tourism industry in the past few years, including waiving the licence fee, providing additional funding to support the development of tourism, enhancing the competitiveness of the industry and strengthening training. At the same time, the Government has also increased the funding for the Hong Kong Tourism Board for stepping up publicity overseas and on the Mainland. May I ask the Chief Executive whether she will continue the past practice of the SAR Government of providing support and even introduce more support measures in the future?

 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE (in Cantonese): Thank you, Mr YIU. Being the representative of the tourism industry, Mr YIU is certainly concerned about the development of tourism. We can see that the number of visitor arrivals to Hong Kong has rebounded this year. In May 2017, the year-on-year increase reached 3%, and the number in the first five months has also risen by 3.2%. As I have noticed from the newspapers today, the retail sector has shown more signs of improvement, too. For this reason, now we need to maintain this good momentum through more government measures. Hence, simply put, we will definitely continue to take forward the work which the Government has all along been doing to support the tourism industry.

Besides, I cannot immediately set up a Tourism Bureau for the tourism industry because reorganization of the government structure is rather complicated and takes time, but as I have proposed in the manifesto, I will ask a Secretary of Department to conduct an inter-departmental study to look into the issues of various scales faced by the tourism industry today and examine whether better arrangements can be made for the industry through better coordination among departments.

 

MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese): I am grateful for the Chief Executive's undertaking. I hope that the Government will expeditiously promote the development and planning of tourism as stated by the Chief Executive. We also hope that this organization can be set up as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, the rise in the number of visitor arrivals to Hong Kong is attributable to the increase in support measures by the SAR Government in these two years. I hope the Chief Executive can undertake to pay more attention to tourism and provide more support measures, such as waiving licence fees and providing additional funding as mentioned by me just now, during her tenure. Can the Chief Executive make more undertakings to the tourism industry in this regard?

 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE (in Cantonese): I do not wish to make Members representing other industries to be mistaken that I especially favour the tourism industry, since this was raised by Mr YIU. But actually, although tourism only accounts for 5% of the Gross Domestic Product of Hong Kong, it can provide more employment opportunities because tourism is a labour-intensive industry. Hence, tourism is of great importance to Hong Kong. We will definitely inject resources and roll out new policy initiatives to consolidate and enhance the development of tourism in Hong Kong.