Hong Kong woos tourists with Mega Sale

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Hong Kong's depressed retail sector received a much-needed boost when the territory this week launched a campaign to attract regional travel shoppers, the HSBC Mega Hong Kong Sale

While summer sales are not new in Hong Kong, this year's event is the first co-ordinated effort led by the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) involving more than 2,100 retail outlets. The tourism body expects 3.25m visitors to Hong Kong during the 11-week period, or 8.9% more than a year ago. Some 100,000 visitors will come just for the sale, HKTB has estimated.

In the promotion tourists get special travel-related discounts with their Visitor Privilege Cards obtainable at Hong Kong airport and downtown hospitality kiosks, as well as gifts and promotional items. Free shuttle buses transport tourists between the major shopping districts in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. And for every HK$300 ($38) spent visitors can enter a daily lucky draw to win two return air-tickets to Hong Kong.

Despite depression in domestic retail, the travel-retail sector continues to be a growth area for Hong Kong. The latest government figures show that visitor arrivals jumped 19% in April, due mainly to a 65% surge in visitors from mainland China. A recent HKTB survey found that 78% of tourists listed shopping as their "favourite activity". More than half of all visitor spending in Hong Kong goes to shopping, representing revenues of more than HK$30bn ($4bn) each year.

For the Mega Sale, HKTB said it is mainly targeting visitors from short-haul destinations such as mainland China, Taiwan, southeast Asia, India, Korea and Japan.