GetYourGuide to spur shareable ‘experiences’ in Hong Kong as tourists change their habits
Strategy also seeks to capture anticipated growth in visits by Western tourists who spend more per capita
GetYourGuide, an online travel start-up, is making a push into the Hong Kong market to offer more experiential tours in the city amid a changing attitude among mainland Chinese tourists who are spending less on goods and prefer authentic cultural experiences.
The Berlin-based company is looking to attract more experiential tour providers in the city to its platform, given the room for growth and the opportunity to put Hong Kong back on the map. The group currently offers 200 such tours in the city.
Aside from catering to the shift in preferences by Chinese tourists, the strategy also seeks to capture anticipated growth in demand from Western tourists, said Johannes Reck, the CEO and co-founder of the company.
“One of the key things to position Hong Kong is through all of the experiential content,” he said. “It’s our strong belief that there will be a lot more Western demand coming into Asia in the coming years. The price point for Western customers is really good.”
About 32.6 million tourists visited Hong Kong in the first nine months of the year, a 40 per cent increase from a year earlier, according to official data. More than 75 per cent of them were mainland Chinese.
