Hong Kong will give away free flights in an attempt to attract tourists.
In a bid to revive its Covid-shattered tourism sector, Hong Kong will give away 500,000 free air tickets to tourists, the city’s tourism board said.
The Airport Authority has budgeted HK$2 billion ($254 million USD) to buy tickets from airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Express, and Hong Kong Airlines.
“The airport authority will finalise the arrangement with airline companies,” executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Dane Cheng, said.
“Once the government announces it will remove all Covid-19 restrictions for inbound travellers, we’ll roll out the advertising campaign for the free air tickets.”
The campaign is expected to start early next year. It will first target visitors from Asia and other short-haul markets.
The city has rolled back several Covid-related travel restrictions in recent weeks including a mandatory three-day hotel quarantine.
The city’s government said it would no longer require people to go into hotel quarantine or show a negative Covid test before boarding flights to Hong Kong.
A record 56 million tourists visited Hong Kong 2019; however, the city only saw 184,000 visitors in the entire year of 2021.
Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic confirmed that its service between London and Hong Kong was being dropped after almost 30 years.
Virgin Atlantic had halted flights to Hong Kong since December and is one of several airlines which have not re-routed flights through Russia’s airspace following its invasion of Ukraine.
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