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The number of arrivals declined sharply the following year when anti-government protests erupted and after the city closed its borders in 2020 when the coronavirus crisis hit.
Restrictions were fully lifted only at the start of this year, and mainland tourists have slowly been returning. In June, 2.15 million mainlanders arrived, accounting for 78 per cent of the total of 2.74 million visitors.
The city welcomed about 13 million visitors, 37 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, in the first half of the year.
The index is available to the public and updated on a monthly basis. It shows the forecast for the present month and the two subsequent ones.
The figures for 2018, which the researchers said was “a more stable and prosperous period”, are used as a base index. About 65 million people visited Hong Kong that year.
The information was sourced from more than 10 million data points taken from Chinese social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, online travel agencies such as Ctrip, and travel forums such as Mafengwo.
More than 20 factors that influence mainlanders’ intention to travel were identified and taken into consideration to calculate the index, including visa numbers and how welcome they feel.
The researchers are focused on tourists coming across the border, but said they hoped to expand the model to include other markets.
“This can definitely be extended into other languages and other social media contexts,” Denise Che Huey-sze, the CEO of Wisers, said.
Gianna Hsu Wong Mei-lun, the chairwoman of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, welcomed the approach, but said the jury was still out on whether AI-processed data could provide accurate predictions.
“This is good for the industry,” she said. “As operators, we hope to get our hands on more information on customer trends, or even hotel rate trends, because these have a direct impact on us and on our plans for the future.”
Hsu agreed with using 2018 as the reference year and said it was a widely used benchmark in the industry. She added it would be helpful to the industry if the index showed how long visitors stayed.
“If we have that figure, we’d be able to understand whether consumers prefer longer or shorter stays,” she said. “We could then explore what types of products would be most suitable for them.”
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