Hong Kong walking tour firm moves online to survive pandemic
HONG KONG — A tourism company has moved its walking tours online to reach a travel-starved audience unable to explore new places due to coronavirus restrictions.
The company, Walk in Hong Kong, runs free online tours in Cantonese focused on local history and culture, with help from government subsidies and private donations. While bookings for its regular in-person tours typically took a week to fill, one recent virtual tour filled 70 spots overnight.
It now plans to run such tours in English for an overseas audience on a permanent
basis. It expects to start charging around HK$100 ($13) per person from next month.
The tours are filmed with a phone and a gimbal, and are interactive, with specialist guests like architects available to answer questions.
Article continues after this advertisementEight people are working in two teams, one on the ground, the other interacting with the audience from a studio in between tour stops.
Article continues after this advertisement“We are thinking about turning it into a program that appeals to overseas guests, for example talking about Hong Kong’s history and Hong Kong’s current events, to explain what is happening to the city,” said managing director Olivia Tang.
“We can have hundreds of people from all around the world attend at the same time,” Tang said.
Tourism in Hong Kong has been crippled in the past year first by prodemocracy protests, then by the pandemic.
Many countries have also issued travel advisories after Beijing introduced a sweeping national security law last month that tightens the central government’s grip on China’s freest city.
Tourist arrivals plummeted 99.7 percent in June from a year earlier to 14,606.
Julianne Chan, 27, joined a recent tour about architecture in Kennedy Town, the neighborhood where she grew up, after having to cancel a trip to London due to COVID-19.
“During the pandemic, … there’s not a lot you can do,” she said.
“With these constraints, I would still go on a virtual tour, but if I can choose, I would always opt for just going abroad myself and seeing with my own eyes.”
For more news about the novel coronavirus click here.
What you need to know about Coronavirus.
For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH Hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.
The Inquirer Foundation supports our healthcare frontliners and is still accepting cash donations to be deposited at Banco de Oro (BDO) current account #007960018860 or donate through PayMaya using this link.