Tourism in Hong Kong

What motivates people to visit Hong Kong?

Tourists come to Hong Kong for the motive – shopping. Most of the tourists come to Hong Kong for holiday, visiting relatives, shopping, food, nightlife and cultural destinations. Hong Kong is known as city of life, so tourists might want to know more about Hong Kong. We can divide these motives into three types: stop over, holiday, business. The reason tourists come to Hong Kong for stop over is because Hong Kong is one main airport in Asia, the Hong Kong International Airport which the airport opened in 1998, replacing the old Kai Tak International Airport. Further more, there is passenger and freight rail service to Guangzhou. Many Especially, lots of Taiwanese use Hong Kong as a stop over place to China. There is no straight flight from Taiwan to China due to some political problems, so if Taiwanese want to go to China, they have to take a flight to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong, they can go to any parts of China. If people come here for business, they do not want to come, there are sent by their companies. They come here for business conference or perambulate how is the company going in Hong Kong and China because most of the manufacturers shifted the location of their production facilities to neighboring Guangdong Province, where labor costs were much lower. After the hand over in 1997, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, so lots of people from China migrated to Hong Kong. Therefore, their relatives come to visit them from China very often because it does not take very long to get to Hong Kong, and the transportation fee is also not very expensive. Over the past 3 years, most of the tourists came to visit Hong Kong were from Guangzhou and Shanghai. The last motive tourists come to Hong Kong is for holiday, and most of the tourists come to Hong Kong for this motive. Hong Kong – the city of life, is also known as shopping and eating paradise. The reason Hong Kong is called city of life is because Hong Kong is a very flourish city and the is no night in Hong Kong because of the neon light, so even when it is night, the whole city is still very light and full of power. When you are in Hong Kong, you will feel that you are full of energy. There are lots of different kinds of food to eat, Italian, Indian, Spanish… Hong Kong is a very famous shopping paradise because there are lots of things to buy and you can find everything you need in Hong Kong and the commodity prices is not that high. Four things listed above are the motives of tourists coming to Hong Kong.

How would the tourists think about Hong Kong? Will they come again?

Most of the tourists think that Hong Kong is a very crowded place but prosperous. This is why Hong Kong is called City of Life. Most of them would come to visit Hong Kong Again. The reason they think Hong Kong is crowded is because the population in Hong Kong is unevenly distributed, however, with the greatest concentrations of people in Kowloon and across the harbor on Hong Kong Island. Some districts, such as Mong Kok in Kowloon, have population densities of about 40,000 persons per square km, among the highest urban densities in the world. Although birth and death rates are comparatively low in Hong Kong, migration from other parts of China creates a high population growth rate, and migrants now make up about 40 percent of the population. Most of the tourists think things are very expensive in Hong Kong since the rate’s of exchange in Hong Kong is very high, therefore, things will be more expensive compare to other countries. In addition, tourists who speak English might think it is easy to communicate with local people in Hong Kong because English and Chinese are the official languages in Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s English level is relatively higher compare to other countries in Asia. Most of the tourists think that Hong Kong is a very special city which mixed up with traditional cultural and modern cultural; also it is mixed up with Chinese cultural and Western Cultural. However, Hong Kong is a very efficient city, you can see it by looking at how fast the People in Hong Kong is walking. Somehow, the tourists might have maladjustment. Most of them will come to Hong Kong again because the Walt Disney Company is building a Disneyland in Hong Kong, which it will bring so many benefits for Hong Kong. Disneyland provides more employment opportunity for local people in Hong Kong, and this can lower the unemployment rate. The lower the unemployment rate, the better the surface. Tourists will have better impression of Hong Kong, which they will be willing to stay longer.

Methodology:

In this investigation, data is collected at Tsim Sha Tsui, the Peak Tram Terminal in Central, and the Star Ferry Pier in Central. I chose these places to collect my data because those are the places where most tourists would go usually. The date of data collecting was set on Saturday the 27th and Sunday the 28th. This is because those two days were during the Chinese New Year Holiday, and there were some festive celebrations. There were very huge numbers of tourists attempted the festive celebrations. So I think it was right time to do the survey and the data will be more fair and accurate. In collecting the data, I randomly selected 50 tourists. This is because the more tourists I interviewed, the more accurate my results will be. When selecting the people, I should select carefully to make sure all the people I interview are tourists. There is a very easy way to do this, which is very simple but useful. First, see if they are carrying cameras or things like that; second, see if they are holding a map or itinerary, or brochure.  In the 50 randomly selected tourists, each of them has to answer 15 questions. These questions including: origin, gender, age, purpose, days of stay, attractions, daily expenditure, who are they traveling with, when was their last visit, will they revisit and how would they grade Hong Kong. (See appendix #1 for the questionnaire). When collecting the data, it is very important to make the data as fair and accurate as possible. Although the 50 tourists were randomly selected, we should not collect the data only on one gender, because this will not make the data fair. To ensure that all tourists are represented, I had to make sure that a proportion of the questionnaires are answered by men, a proportion by women, a proportion by younger people, and proportion by older, and so on. In this case, I had to collect 25 males and 25 females. So, the data will be very reliable and fair. Further more, when interviewing the tourists, we have to introduce ourselves first and explain a little bit about the interview we are doing and tell them how are we going to use the data. This is because people normally do not like answering questions asked by a stranger, because they might think that we want to promote or sell something. It would be better to show the tourists the student cards and wear the school uniform.

Results:

50 samples were collected and organized in a table so it is clearer to see and identify a pattern. (See appendix #2 for raw data)

Data description:

 This bar chart clearly shows the number of tourists from each country. The largest number of tourist comes from England, which there are 6 of them. There are 5 tourists come from each of these three countries: China, Japan, and USA. There are 3 tourists come from each of these three countries: Canada, France and Taiwan. The smallest number of tourist comes from Switzerland and Austria, which there is only one of them. The other 9 countries have 2 tourists visit Hong Kong.

This pie chart shows us the age groups of the tourists. From this chart, we can see that the age group 30-39 leads the whole group of 40% of the total. The second largest age group is 40-49, which is 26% of the total. Two age groups 19-29 and 50+ have the same percentage of the total, which is 14%. The smallest age group is –18, which is only 6% of the total.

From this chart, it can be identified that most tourists visit Hong Kong to spend their holidays, which it is 38% of the total. The second largest purpose is stop over, which is 26% of the total. Tourists come to here as a stop over; they stay in Hong Kong for few days and then go to China or other countries. The third largest purpose is business, which is 20%; tourists come here to work or attend a conference. The smallest purpose is relatives, which is only 18%; tourists come here to visit their relatives.

This pie chart shows the attractions that bring people to Hong Kong. Most tourists come here because of shopping, which is 32% of the total. But there are other attractions that bring people to Hong Kong, such as people, nightlife, food and sightseeing.

This chart shows the probability of tourists visit Hong Kong again in the future. Most of them would like to revisit Hong Kong in the future. 66% of them are coming back again, 24% of them might come back again, only 10% of them would not come back because they said they had seen everything.

This bar chart shows that the tourists have pretty good overall impression of Hong Kong, most of them give Hong Kong around 7 to 8 points. 3 people give Hong Kong 10 points; 4 people give Hong Kong 9 points; 14 people give Hong Kong 8 points; 17 people, which is the majority give Hong Kong 7 points; 10 people give Hong Kong 6 points and only 2 people give Hong Kong 5 points.

Conclusion:

After the coursework, I have achieved my aims, which I find out what are the characteristics of tourists arriving in Hong Kong. According to the results I collected, I prove that all my hypotheses were true. A pattern can be identified in terms of the length of stay with tourists who visit Hong Kong; Tourists come to Hong Kong for the motive – shopping; and most of the tourists would come to visit Hong Kong again. I could have done this coursework better and make it more accurate. Everything went quite well except when I was doing the survey. Some tourists didn’t want to fill the questionnaires and some of them just walked away. I used font 8 for the questionnaire, which is too small, it might affect the tourists’ impression and he survey was not that accurate because it is not taken randomly around Hong Kong. To solve these problems, I will have to make the font of the questionnaire bigger and it must be taken at least 3-4 places.

Appendix #1 - Questionnaire:

Excuse me sir/madam; I am doing a survey for the school geography coursework. I want to investigate “what are the characteristics of tourists arriving in Hong Kong” and can I stop you for a while to answer this questionnaire please?

QUESTIONNAIRE

SAMPLE

Location: ______________________                 Date: ___________________

1. Origin: _______________________________________________
2. Gender:  □ Male     □ Female
3. Age:  □ -18     □ 19 – 29     □ 30 – 39     □ 40 – 49     □ 50+
4. Purpose of visiting:  □ Business     □ Stop over     □ Holiday     □ Visiting relatives     □ Others __________
5. How long will you stay in Hong Kong?  ___________
6. What is the most attractive thing of Hong Kong?  □ Shopping     □ Foods     □ Nightlife     □ Hong Kong People     □ Sightseeing     □ Others ________
7. Daily Expenditure (excluding air ticket & accommodation)  □ Under HK$500     □ HK$500-HK$999     □ HK$1000-HK$1999    □ HK$2000-HK$5000     □ Above HK$5000
8. Are you traveling: □Alone?     □With Family?     □With Friends?     □ With a Tour Group?     □ Others _____________
9.  When was your last visit to Hong Kong?  □ 2000     □ 1999     □ 1998     □1997 or before     □ Never came to Hong Kong
10.  Will you visit Hong Kong again in the future?  □ Yes     □ No     □ Maybe
11.  How would you rate Hong Kong if you can give Hong Kong a mark out of ten?  _______

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Thanks for your time, enjoy your trip!

Appendix #2 – Raw data:

Bibliography

The Hong Kong Tourist’s Association Homepage -

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2000