Hong Kong hospitality campaign needed after sector hurt by pandemic, bad apples: tourism chief Kevin Yeung Hong Kong’s service industry has been tainted by a few bad apples on social media and three years of the pandemic, making it necessary for the government to launch a campaign to push the sector forward, the tourism chief has said. “What we are after is the spirit of serving. We want to push for a genuine welcome for tourists from the bottom of our hearts. It will be a good showcase of Hong Kong, whether it is attracting visitors or boosting the city’s image,” Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said on Monday. “The vast majority of the practitioners in the service industry are very courteous and are passionate about serving their customers,” he added. “But it is true that there may have been some isolated cases that were shared on social media that created misunderstanding.” Yeung was speaking at the launch of the government’s “Let’s go the Extra Mile” campaign, aimed at addressing Hong Kong’s notoriously poor quality services with a series of initiatives, including short videos featuring film stars such as Louis Koo Tin-lok and Stephy Tang Lai-yan. One video released on Monday features Koo asking, “What kind of service attitude is considered good enough these days?”, before being served by a shoe shop worker who takes the initiative to give him an alternative size that fits him better. “Going the extra mile is the best way to show hospitality,” Koo concludes. It echoes a similar government campaign from 2002 involving superstar Andy Lau Tak-wah, which features a series of television adverts of him delivering his famous line, “Such attitudes in service are not enough these days,” as scenes of grumbling service workers are replaced with them smiling and chatting with customers. Yeung noted there was no short-term measure of success for the scheme and that the goal was for everyone to “feel the change” in the long run when out shopping or dining. “We launched the campaign for several reasons. First is that we resumed cross-border travel last year. Before that, the sector was dormant for three years,” he said. Hong Kong recorded 34 million visitors in 2023, around half the number of pre-pandemic 2018, while the first-quarter recovery this year was 72 per cent compared with the same period six years ago. Shifting patterns in tourism also meant many visitors were venturing into non-traditional tourist locations, and some of the service providers there might need “reminders” as they had been used to serving just locals in the past, Yeung said. He also noted some cases of bad service providers had gained traction on social media, triggering concerns about Hong Kong as a visitor-friendly destination. A search on popular mainland social media platform Xiaohongshu produces hundreds of results from tourists complaining about their bad experiences while travelling to Hong Kong, especially when they visit local-style diners, or cha chaan teng. Others called on visitors to understand this was the culture of the city, in which efficiency was extremely important. Hong Kong athletes turned personalities Kevin Chu Kam-yin and Tony Wu Tsz-tung were also recruited to appear in the new video clips as part of the effort. Meanwhile, the city’s taxi industry will roll out a three-month courtesy drive on June 5 to improve its reputation, by deploying ambassadors to cab ranks, including those at the airport and border checkpoints, to encourage drivers to be polite to passengers. Four to six ambassadors will visit taxi ranks across the city every Tuesday and Thursday between June 11 and August 29, to distribute pamphlets and souvenirs to cabbies. Official statistics showed that taxi service complaints and suggestions were 52.8 per cent higher in 2023 at 11,096 from 2022, with cab drivers refusing a hire and overcharging passengers among the top complaints. The Hong Kong Taxi Council said the initiative was more about educating drivers and that measuring its success would be challenging. Leung said that part of the misunderstanding could also be cultural, with Hong Kong workers having a tendency to be more direct, which might be interpreted as being impolite. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3265207/hong-kong-hospitality-campaign-needed-after-sector-hurt-pandemic-bad-apples-tourism-chief-kevin (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: South China Morning Post