Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) South-east Asia regional director Raymond Chan said arrivals from the Philippines have shown steady growth, and they are banking on the South-east Asian country’s robust outbound sector.
Hong Kong is targeting one million tourist arrivals from the Philippines next year.
Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) South-east Asia regional director Raymond Chan said arrivals from the Philippines have shown steady growth, and they are banking on the South-east Asian country’s robust outbound sector.
“It doesn't mean we have to hit the one-million mark in 2018, but 2019 maybe,” he said.
More than 900,000 Filipinos visited Hong Kong in 2017, the highest from any South-east Asian country.
In January to May this year, Chan said 370,000 Filipinos had visited Hong Kong.
“For the first five months we have a slight growth in terms of overnight arrivals, the visitors who stayed overnight in Hong Kong—1.7%. Hopefully the growth will become bigger in the next half of the year,” he said.
Chan noted HKTB is now leveraging several tourism initiatives to encourage more Filipinos to fly to Hong Kong.
A major growth driver, Chan said, would be additional flights from the Philippines to Hong Kong, with airlines launching direct flights from Davao later this year.
“We have a lot of increased capacity from the airlines to the major airports—Manila, Clark, and Cebu. And in September, we’ll have Davao as well,” Chan said.