Hong Kong was the world’s top destination in terms of visitors for the ninth straight year in 2018 and will still lead the market in 2019 despite the ongoing political and social turmoil, according to a top research house.
The city, Bangkok, London, Macau, Singapore, Paris, Dubai, New York, Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul were ranked the 10 most popular destinations by Euromonitor International, which studied foreign visitor statistics for 2018 across 400 cities.
The British-based research company estimated global inbound arrivals would jump 4.2 per cent to 1.5 billion trips in 2019, with the top 100 cities accounting for nearly 47 per cent of the total and growing 6.2 per cent from a year earlier.
Hong Kong, although hammered by more than five months of protests, was expected to keep its crown in 2019 even though Euromonitor forecast foreign arrivals would drop 8.7 per cent to 26.71 million.
But that figure was still higher than the No 2 destination, Bangkok, which was estimated to receive 25.84 million foreign arrivals in 2019, a 6.9 per cent increase on last year.
Foreign visitors are defined as those who visit another country for more than 24 hours, for a period not exceeding 12 months, and stay in paid or unpaid, collective or private accommodation.
In Hong Kong’s case, that includes mainland Chinese visitors, who made up 78 per cent of the city’s total arrivals in the first 10 months of this year.
Euromonitor said the city’s reputation arose from its proximity to the mainland, its vibrant shopping and strong cultural heritage.
Simon Haven, senior analyst at Euromonitor, noted that Hong Kong was starting from a strong base ahead of Bangkok, adding that the gap was going to narrow quite a bit.
“The thing people forget is that the protests only really started to have an impact on arrivals in July, so that means that between January and June, the numbers were very strong,” he said.
“If you look just over the first six months, the increase in arrivals was 14 per cent over the last year, so that’s a very strong performance in terms of arrivals. Only as of July, August, September did the numbers start to drop.”
In October, arrivals to Hong Kong were down 43.7 per cent year on year to 3.31 million – the worst since May 2003 – with more than 40 jurisdictions worldwide issuing warnings or alerts for travellers heading to the city.
New cross-border transport infrastructure, such as the 55km Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the 23km local stretch of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link would provide consistent growth in arrivals from the mainland, it said.
The company’s optimism is in stark contrast to the havoc ongoing protests have wreaked on the city for months.
Tourist arrivals have taken a battering since the protests, sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill, broke out in June and subsequently evolved into a wider anti-government campaign with worsening levels of violence.
In popular tourist districts such as Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Jordan, Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok, peaceful rallies have often descended into violent clashes between radical protesters and riot police, resulting in public transport, especially train services, having to close early. Radicals have also blocked roads and vandalised businesses and public facilities.
Hard-core protesters have frequently hurled petrol bombs and bricks at police while officers have deployed water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets and other projectiles to disperse crowds.
“Travel is resilient,” said Agilson Valle, Country Manager at Euromonitor International.
Citing the examples of London, Paris and Istanbul – all cities that suffered terrorist attacks in 2018 and still made it onto the top 10 list –Valle said “people forget” and the outlook was positive for Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, Shenzhen dropped three places to 13th in Euromonitor’s Top 100 cities list this year, behind Istanbul (10th), Delhi (11th) and Antalya (12th).
“Turkey picked up quite a lot in the number of arrivals because of the devaluation of the Turkish lira, and it became a safer place again so Europeans started going back,” Valle said. “It was more Istanbul and Antalya growing in the number of visitors, not necessarily Shenzhen losing a lot.”
