Rituparna Chatterjee – Mumbai
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| L-R: Anthony Lau – Executive Director HKTB and Durjoy Datta |
Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) is promoting the destination through Durjoy Datta’s latest romantic fiction ‘Hold My Hand’, with an aim to open up the city through different destinations mentioned in the novel by targeting mainly the youth apart from leisure and MICE segments. Speaking on the growth of the leisure segment in Hong Kong, Antony Lau, executive director, HKTB said, “In 2012, we welcomed close to 49 million people and in that about three to four million were MICE travellers and the rest were real vacationers. So we have people coming from different segments of the market. We are planning to promote the destination in a couple of areas. One is to find out new ways that creates a buzz and the book is one way. Also it is important for us to utilise the digital and social media.”
HKTB is also coming up with attractive product offerings for Indian travellers. “Our representative here in India, Sunil Puri, MD, Mileage Communications (India) is working with all the airlines to come up with favourable, value for money packages year round to take advantage of all the events we have in Hong Kong,” said Lau. When asked about the marketing budget set aside to promote the destination, he declined to disclose the amount.
Lau further added, “A couple of years ago we were only marketing Hong Kong in New Delhi and now we are in five to six cities. We need to create awareness about Hong Kong among the Indian consumers and so we will continue to invest in this market and fine tune our marketing programmes to come up with innovative ideas like this.
HKTB has partnered with Whistling Woods to hold a short story contest inviting film students to produce snippets of the book. The winning film will premier in December this year in India.
