Hong Kong chief John Lee mentioned on Thursday he had changed two senior officers in an surprising transfer that he mentioned would maximise social and financial advantages and assist town “catch up” with different tourism locations.
Hong Kong has struggled to revive its enchantment amongst worldwide vacationers after generally violent mass protests in 2019 and strict journey guidelines imposed in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lee instructed reporters at a press convention that he had been “observing the state of affairs for fairly a while” earlier than deciding to exchange Kevin Yeung, secretary for tradition, sports activities and tourism and Lam Sai-hung, secretary for transport and logistics.
“We’ve gone by way of the epidemic, protests in 2019, we have to catch up. I need to create the most important societal and financial profit for Hong Kong,” Lee mentioned.
Mable Chan will take over as transport secretary, whereas Rosanna Regulation would be the new sports activities, tradition and tourism secretary, Lee mentioned. Each girls have labored for the federal government for greater than 30 years.
“We attempt to do higher on a regular basis,” Lee added. “The 2 new secretaries will make good use of their management and their capacity to clarify insurance policies clearly.”
The federal government has been making an attempt to attract worldwide guests with a sequence of sporting and cultural occasions in addition to giant scale conferences.
Authorities are planning a big scale panda carnival from Dec. 11 to 21 to capitalise on the six pandas at present residing at a theme park within the metropolis. Two have been born in Hong Kong earlier this yr, whereas Beijing loaned two extra to town in September.
Some 36.68 million vacationers have visited Hong Kong within the 10 months to the top of October 2024, in response to newest authorities information. Authorities have mentioned they hope to achieve 46 million arrivals this yr.
The numbers stay beneath the highs seen earlier than the protests and the pandemic. In 2018, Hong Kong recorded greater than 65 million arrivals.
This text was produced by Reuters information company. It has not been edited by World South World.
