Travel and tourism are a cornerstone of the economy encompassing much more than just leisure and business travel. This vast industry plays a significant role in ensuring a thriving economy and providing a lot of jobs.

With its multiplier financial effect, travel and tourism’s contribution to sectors of the economy such as transportation, retail and shopping, entertainment, attractions, restaurants, and recreation tend to be substantial, much higher than normally reported, contributing to the growth of the economy and the welfare of the community.

For several decades, Hong Kong’s travel and tourism industry ranked among the world’s strongest, with high standards resulting in high performance and returns. The wit, grit, passion and professionalism of the city’s local and foreign workforce made its tourism scene highly enterprising, dynamic and competitive. Regional direct competitors were no doubt envious. Past glories, however, cannot be relied upon, and change is inevitable. Hong Kong must react and adapt now to regain its dominant position in the market.

The good news is Hong Kong does have what it takes to regain its dominant position in the global tourism industry. The city is blessed with a unique history and location. Its inhabitants are also exceptionally creative, innovative and resilient, with proven track records of turning challenges into opportunities. Overall, it’s an extraordinarily unique place to live, work and visit — one of the best freewheeling places in the world, and definitely not a place of contradictions.

The city’s strengths in financial services, trade, transport, communication, attractions, efficiency and infrastructure also remain robust and attractive to many. Its country parks and coastal areas — ranging from sandy beaches and rocky foreshores to high peaks — are stunning, and something Hong Kong can proudly promote to international visitors.

The authorities in Hong Kong have recently devoted much more attention to tourism, and that’s a positive move, but much more needs to be done, including taking a good look at the present tourism model and structure.

Relying too heavily on one source of tourist arrivals is not healthy in the medium to long term. Ideally, any destination should have well-balanced sources of business. An old saying within the industry goes, “Keep it within one-third from one source or from one industry.” Right now, Hong Kong needs more international arrivals staying for multiple nights.

Treating all arrivals in Hong Kong as tourists is confusing and unhealthy. Separating the daily visitors from those staying overnight is an obvious thing to do. The same applies to visitors who are attending meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) events, as these are not tourists but a very important segment.

Maximizing the potential of Hong Kong’s waterfront harbor (arguably one of the best harbors in the world) with dynamic activities, attractions, restaurants and other things could generate a good response and elicit much interest from tourists. Of similar importance is the positioning of Hong Kong as the cultural center of Asia, with year-round musical shows and cultural activities. This may require a substantial initial investment that will eventually pay off on repositioning Hong Kong.

The demonstrations in 2019-20, the late reopening after the COVID-19 pandemic, and geopolitics have created negative perceptions around Hong Kong’s image in many places around the world, and the need for strong/quality public relations activities to reverse the image and restore confidence is essential. The use of qualified professionals to constantly promote the city would be of great help to reverse the current image.

Following the best practices of a number of successful destinations around the world in attracting MICE activities — that is, the most rewarding business — a suggestion is to address the present tourism bureau structure, and instead of having one, create two structures, one handling tourists and the other handling MICE events. Two separate structures reporting to two different bodies. The objective of this is to have more focus, create competition, and of course increase the volume of quality arrivals into Hong Kong.

In line with trends and expectations, modernizing the present tourism module may generate positive results.

The author is a veteran of the hotel-hospitality-travel industry. He is a longtime Hong Kong resident, a retired CEO of Shangri-La International, and founder of Angelini Hospitality.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.