Reflection Paper On Hong Kong Tourism

Reflection Paper On Hong Kong Tourism Hong Kong tourism is one of the four pillars in its economy. With its image as a cosmopolitan city, Hong Kong has attracted millions of tourists each year. However there are tourism issues that should not be overlooked by the government and the Hong Kong Tourism Commission (HKTC) in order to develop strategies to maintain the long term sustainability of Hong Kong tourism. In this paper, a situation assessment is presented and key tourism issues are identified together with the problems associated and relevant strategies to overcome these problems identified. After the handover of Hong Kong back to the hands of China in 1997, Hong Kong developed its strong links with China. Tourism is with no exception. In 2010, Hong Kong recorded 36 million visitors with more than 60% of visitors coming from Mainland China (HKTB, 2011). This was the result of the extension of Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) and the relaxation of visa arrangement that stimulate the demand. In the coming future, demand from Chinese tourists is still in a grow. Despite the stable demand from Chinese tourists, Hong Kong faces huge challenges from nearby destinations. Hong Kong is used to have being a shopping paradise and being a MICE destination as its competitive edges, however these edges seem to be narrowing down. Hainan province in China has launched a shopping tax refund program to attract non-residents to spend in shopping (Peoples Daily, 2011). Singapore and Macau have developed casino resorts together with MICE facilities to attract business tourism. Despite all these, Hong Kong still has its advantage on its geographic location to be a gateway to China which attracts millions of people in and out of Hong Kong as a hub. Besides, Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan city and an Asias world city which contains characteristics of the West and the East, tradition and contemporary which is appealing to overseas tourists. Its financial position in Hong Kong has attracted many business travelers to come to Hong Kong for business purpose and its image of being a Shopping and Food Paradise has also attracted many leisure tourists. Though Hong Kong still has these advantages, these competitions should not be overlooked in order to strategically maintain its long term sustainability. Tourism Issue 1 Reliance on Chinese tourists In the light of the huge share of Chinese tourists in the mix of Hong Kong tourist arrivals, it is an issue of whether Hong Kong tourism should rely that much on the Chinese market. Some supporters would say the huge supply and spending of Chinese tourists has stabilized Hong Kong tourism demand. From the statistics obtained by HKTB (2011), while the numbers of short haul tourists from Taiwan and Japan and that of long haul tourists from Europe and USA declined in the past 10 years, the visitor number from Mainland China grew rapidly. It can be said that Chinese tourists have sustained Hong Kong tourism. Moreover, according to another statistics from HKTB (2011), Chinese tourists were big spenders that have accounted for 69% of the total visitors spending in 2010. All these reasons have led Hong Kong to develop tourism policy especially for this group of tourists. However, over reliance on the Chinese market would create problems as well. In case of external forces or simply the change of taste of Chinese tourist would pose difficulties for Hong Kong to maintain its visitors number. The 12th National 5-Year Plan released by the Chinese government is one of the external forces mentioned. It was the first time that Hong Kong tourism was not highlighted in the plan, instead the Chinese government intended to develop Macau as a world-class tourism and leisure center (Hong Kongs Information Services Department, 2011). With this aim, the Chinese government might be policies that favor that development of Macau tourism. In that case, more Chinese tourists would be encouraged to go to Macau instead of Hong Kong. Back to Hong Kong, cases like Ah Zhen incident that happened recently would discourage Chinese tourists to travel to Hong Kong. Ah Zhen has been accused to have damaged Hong Kongs reputation as Shopping Paradise by blaming Chinese tourists for not purchasing souvenirs from designated shops. Similar incidents have also happened after this (Wall Street Journal, 2010). These incidents would hinder more Chinese tourists to travel to Hong Kong for shopping. In the long run, this would pose challenges to Hong Kong tourism. China is a huge market that would supply sufficient demand for Hong Kong tourism, Hong Kong government should continue retaining this group of guests to come to Hong Kong. In order to achieve this, there are several recommendations to protect the interests of these guests. Firstly, the government could expand its Quality and Honest Hong Kong Tours Programme to continue strengthening Hong Kongs image as a quality and value for money destination. At the moment, the programme has been carried out in 27 Mainland cities and also in the virtual world on the Internet. Participating travel agents in the scheme have to commit that their itineraries should not contain designated shopping stops and forced shopping and forced self-paid activities. In the new expansion of the programme, the government can promote these tours together with its benefits in more cities in China. Besides, the government can also promote them more extensively via different communication channels, e.g. TV advertisement, social media, etc. Moreover, secret shopper campaign should be continued and done more extensively to spot out illegal or unethical behaviors of travel guides to maintain a satisfactory level of services. This campaign can be used to facilitate the implementation of the Quality and Honest Hong Kong Tours Programme as well to make sure the travel agencies in China and in Hong Kong if they are following the guidelines offered by Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong (TIC) and the Hong Kong Tourism Commission (HKTC). It is hoped that by this campaign, travel agencies would self regulate themselves in service delivery and provision. Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong (TIC) should develop a more regulatory system to warn and punish travel agencies or tourist guides once illegal or unethical behaviors have been spotted out. In the case of Ah Zhen, originally she was suspended from being a tour guide after the case discovered, however, after her appeal to TIC, she is now suspended for only half year. This indicates the ineffectiveness of the existing system which could allow similar incidents to happen in the future. TIC should be more careful in designing its regulatory system in order to exercise more regulatory power and punishment on Hong Kong tour operators and tour guides who have offended the rules and gives more confidence to Chinese tourists, thus remedy the bad reputation built. However, for the long term benefit of Hong Kong tourism, over focusing on one market segment could be dangerous, Hong Kong government should also find ways to attract other markets. Issue 2 Sustainability of cultural and heritage attractions In view of this and the keen competition from neighboring destinations, Hong Kong has tried its best to develop new tourism products to overcome these challenges. Cultural attractions are popular among these new attractions in recent years to improve Hong Kongs cultural image. Tsim Sha Tsui piazza and the West Kowloon Cultural District are two of the big projects that the government has under taken as new tourism attractions. Besides, the government has also emphasized in developing heritages to showcase Hong Kongs mixed culture. Examples are the former Marine Police Headquarter in Tsim Sha Tsui which has renovated to become a square 1881 Heritage and a boutique hotel named Hullett House. Another example would be the Central market which will be developed into Central Oasis and the project of revitalizing the Former Police Station is Central. One key issue that can be identified among all these projects is whether they could enhance sustainability. According to the Chief Executive in 1999 (Hong Kong Sustainable Department, 2008), the Hong Kong government would ensure a sustainable development to bring about full integration of economic and social development with conservation of environment. In order to achieve this, local participation is very important in leading to sustainable development which gives win-win situation to all parties of the society. However, one common key critics faced by the government in these big projects is lack of transparency. For example, in the case of Tsim Sha Tsui Piazza, a workshop that aims to gather opinions from different parties was subjected to question as these parties were mostly come from the government or government-related organizations (Tourism Commission, 2007). Another example is from another big project, the West Kowloon Cultural District. The management authority of the project is questioned as all of the 15 members from the authority were appointed by the government. Therefore, it is commonly believed that due to lack of transparency, the interest of the government might have affected the management. For heritage sites development, given that the Heritage Tourism Task Force was set up in 1998, it was blamed to be lack of leadership and lack of influence in the government bureaucracy (Chu and Uebegang, 2002). The essence of sustainable tourism development is how to balance different views from different parties which is actually a huge challenge that the government has to face in planning and developing tourist attractions. In order to fully implement sustainable tourism development, a bottom-up approach has to be adopted to collect more objective views from all sectors in Hong Kong so that specific needs could be satisfied and win-win situation for tourists and locals could be achieved. Cooperation with and involvement of locals or significant cultural group should be guaranteed and local community should be involved at the beginning stage of planning and operation to avoid these heritages to lose its original value, especially to the locals who have grown up with these heritage sites. It is hoped that by this approach, the integrity and authenticity of the heritage could be maintained while new elements like environmental friendly designs could be also involved in the new design. Another problem raised from sustainability is whether these new attractions could showcase the local elements. Perhaps due to the image of Hong Kong as being an international city, projecting an image of East-meet-West, attractions are often blamed to be lack of local characteristics. For example, in the case of West Kowloon Cultural District, even one of the advisory committees of the project criticized that the design is lack of local elements (HKheadline, 2011). This problem has to be dealt properly, or else every new attraction in Hong Kong would deliver similar image to tourists, especially for revitalized heritage attractions which are supposed to deliver a unique image and background knowledge of Hong Kong so that visitors could appreciate and understand more about Hong Kong. One of the solutions is to keep up with public consultations and gather opinions of the public about the kind of local culture to be included in the design of new attractions. By that, local culture could be incorporated into the design and would not be missed out. Conclusion With its strong link to China, Hong Kong relies on the supply of Chinese tourists to sustain tourism. Though the huge number of Chinese tourists remains a consistent supply, there are risks associated with it and as a government body, HKTC should develop measures to also attract other markets and diversify the profile of Hong Kong visitors. On the other hand, sustainable tourism development is often questioned due to lack of transparency and overlook of Hong Kong local elements in development new attractions. HKTC and the government should involve a more transparent public consultation and public engagement so as to guarantee a more sustainable tourism planning and development.

Advertising Planning Portfolio Essay

Market Analysis and Background Bing is considered to be ‘the new’ search engine. Released in June 2009, Bing is Microsoft’s solution to the current search engine market monopolist, Google. Microsoft has focused on Bing being the search engine with the best quality results. One-click access to desired information, easy-to-use exploring tools, simplified search tasks and more specific search results are the main competitive advantages of Bing. â€Å"Google Australia accounted for 74.61% of Australian searches during February, with Google.com taking 12.65%, equating to an overall market share of 87.26%† Stafford, P. (2011). We can see the incredible market share of Google (refer to Appendix 1) despite the fact that Microsoft has invested more that $80 million dollars on Bing since its launch in 2009 (Sullivan, D. 2009). Google currently owns 89.68% of the search engine market share, while Bing is responsible for a minute 3.77% of the Australian market and 4.21% worldwide (StatCounter, 2011). Business Objectives Increase awareness in Australia Regardless of Bing’s release into the market almost 2 years ago with such a large advertising and marketing budget, many people are still unaware of Bing and it’s functions. The campaign aims to increase awareness by 80% in Australia, and by 90% in the specified Australian Target market within 12 months. Increase brand usage: The 12 month campaign will look to increase Bing’s market share by 6% and also a 40% increase in search engine consumers who have utilized the website at least once. Communication Objective Increase brand loyalty The campaign needs to communicate to the Target Audience how Bing is the best search engine for them. They need to connect with the campaign personally and put Bing at the forefront of their minds when it comes to search engine. Consumer Objective The campaign should increase consumer preference. Over 12 months the objective is for an increase by 10% of the Target Market to prefer Bing rather than Google and other search engines. This will probably prove to be the hardest objective to achieve as consumers have been found to be extremely difficult to change current search engine preference. Target Audience The researched has directed the campaign to a primary and a secondary target market. One is the early adopters – so Bing can build and grow in time, and the other is the older generation – to increase short-term market share. Primary market The primary market for the campaign will be 6 to 13 year olds of both genders. They will have a middle to high education, go to school, and be tech savvy. They will spend much of their free-time online, exploring entertainment and social networking sites such as Youtube and Facebook. They are interested in games (online and video), movies, music, sport and are active information seekers. This market is young, future trendsetters and will not have the strong loyalty that the majority of the search engine market has with Google. Rationale It has been proven to be almost impossible to get current loyal Google users to switch to Bing. Focus group research revealed that 8 out of 12 users thought they would stay with Google as their preferred search engine, despite a positive experience with Bing (Shaer, M. 2009). Also a current Google user stated in an interview â€Å"Bing generates interest, but it’s hard to take me away from Google because I’m so comfortable with it’ (Shaer, M. 2009). Secondary The secondary market will be males and females aged 50 – 65. They will be more likely to have children, slightly less educated, not so tech savvy, generally live in metropolitan areas. They are wealthier than the average search engine user, although due to their children, have a small level of disposable income. Rationale Again it is not possible to effectively target current Google users. This audience is not quite as familiar with the Internet, and therefore do not have the brand loyalty with Google. Also Bing is often the default homepage on Microsoft browsers, therefore if a consumer does not have loyalty to another search engine, all that is needed is brand awareness and they will generally use Bing. The Site-reference: Comparing Google and Bing Demographics video (2010) reveals that this outlined target audience is also Bing’s current target audience and therefore, advertisers who have been wanting to reach a similar market have been investing more on Bing advertising and optimization. This is making the website actually better suited to this audience and must be utilized by Bing ( SWOT Strengths * Massive amount of funds available * Owned by Microsoft * Less ‘clicks’ to arrive at desired result * Provides more visual search options Weaknesses * New search Engine * Low brand recognition * Low customer loyalty Opportunities * Future business expansion * Performing in a thriving and growing market Threats * Google holds a monopolistic position in the market * The many other search engines will be added clutter to affect Bing’s advertising Research Bing is a new search engine, facing an enormous task at competing against the web giant Google, the largest website in the world. However, research has shown that Bing has a number of competitive advantages that are superior to Google. And, although slow, Bing has the potential to slowly grow and increase its market share. Bing is a new search engine, still seeking to position and market itself within the industry to properly compete with Google. Research has been conducted to understand where Bing is currently out and how it has got there. Research has also found gaps in the market; places where Google should be heading in the market and how they can best reach these goals in the future market. Research first found that Google consumers expect that they have to dig through search results before stumbling across the desired answer (Sebald, B. 2009). Bing aims to provide a faster, easier and more specific service than its competitor engines. â€Å"We chose Bing because it’s short, memorable, and symbolic of the moment when information and opportunity come together and a simple search becomes an engine for taking action† state Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (Hartley, M. 2009). The name came about by focus groups, where regular Internet users were probed for a short, simple, catchy name that personified the exact moment when the idea pops into your head. Much research has been conducted to find consumers are not entirely happy when searching for information online. They receive a lot of clutter and it was found that 50% of other search engines results failed to meet people’s needs and also 72% were after help to better organize their results (Hartley, M. 2009). Since Bing’s arrival to the mark place, more recent research states â€Å"81% of the searches done on Bing and Yahoo resulted in an actual visit to a website. Google only showed a 65% rate† (Sebald, B. 2011). The comparison of this research is evidence that Bing has a great search engine, with advantages over Google that are answering consumer demands. Schwartz (2009) reveals, â€Å"Consumers can process results with images 20% faster than text only results†. From this Bing has developed ‘visual search’, an innovative way to search the Internet with images rather than words. Bing search intends to provide a more specific, more integrated results incorporating video and images to the results.

Descartes vs. Spinoza Essay

What I will do in this following paper is to discuss two very interesting philosophers, Rene Descartes and Benedictus de Spinoza. I will discuss each philosopher’s perspectives and insights on their most recognized theories and thoughts. I will then evaluate them and then give my opinion on the given topic. By doing this, I will contrast the similarities and differences between the two genius minds. By the end of the paper I will have discarded some ideas and opinions from each of the two and will have my own judgment that consists of thoughts from Spinoza, Descartes and my self put together. Themes On Descartes: Existence of God- Descartes’ View – One of the most famous and debatable theories Descartes had was his proof of the existence of God. He had for steps on the ladder to prove this. 1) Everything including our ideas has a cause. 2) We have an idea of God. 3) Nothing less than God is adequate to be the cause of our idea of God. An lastly 4) Therefore God exists. My View – Considering the fact that Descartes was a rationalist and a very religious man, you can see why he would desperately try to make sense of everything, including God. I believe his proof that he has laid out for us that God exists is false. What Descartes is trying to tell us is that our idea of God comes directly from God himself and that we cannot create something in our minds that we have not already witnessed by our senses. But I believe we can implant the idea of God in our minds without God planting it for us. Since man has been on this planet, we have been evolving. I believe our idea of God is a collection of thoughts and ideas that has evolved. Ideas such as security, peace, direction, order, separating good and evil, questions to our existence, comfort, space, answers to questions no one has. It is all these thoughts, ideas and more put together in our minds overtime that create this all mighty powerful being who knows all and is all that we call God. The U-Turn- Descartes’ View – One of the aspects Descartes strived to find was â€Å"certainty†, searching for absolute foundation. He felt in order to come across certainty; we must first doubt everything we know. To help people comprehend his idea, he created the U-Turn as a visual reference to understand. As we go down the â€Å"U† we first doubt common sense, then we doubt awake/sleep since he believes we can’t distinguish the difference. We continue to go down the â€Å"U† by doubting mathematics because there could be an â€Å"Evil Genius† that tricks us into believing something untrue. At the bottom of this U we reach the point where nothing is certain except one thing according to Descartes, which is our existence. He says â€Å"I think, therefore I am†, which means the only thing we can be certain about is our own existence. He then stops and says if we exist, then there must be a God, and this is where the U takes its turn and moves upwards. He then says if God exists he would not deceive us because he is all loving and caring, therefore we have no reason to doubt mathematics, followed by ourselves (body/mind) and lastly we can then be certain about the physical world, no need to doubt it. My View – I find this to be an interesting concept that Descartes has formulated in his mind, one that is most definitely worth thinking about and taking into consideration. But in my point of view, there is a break in his chain. From the moment he mentions we doubt being awake and asleep is where I think his U-Turn collapses. Descartes says we can not distinguish the difference between the two, but that’s only true to a certain point. As humans we have logic, common sense and we are aware of most of the knowledge we obtain. We know that we live a life every day and that we need rest every night; and we know that sleeping is a form of rest which sometimes includes bizarre, twisted, chaotic scenarios which we call dreams or nightmares. The argument he made on this segment of his U-Turn concept was only half true. He was right on the fact that we can not distinguish the difference when in a dream state but wrong on the idea that same goes for when we are awake. As human begins we may not be able to have any reasoning, logic or understand the fact that we are dreaming but when we are not dreaming we can logically know we are awake and be able to know the difference between awake/sleep which means we don’t have to doubt common sense or mathematics anymore. If this is the case then Descartes U-Turn theory is wrong and the idea that the only thing we can be â€Å"certain† about is our own existence is false. Themes On Spinoza: Conception of God- Spinoza’s’ View – Spinoza went on a whole different direction when it came to God. Up to his point in time most people believed in a transcendent God, this meant that they believed in a personal God that was all loving, caring and would not deceive us human beings. People would prey to this personal God for various things like comfort and security, but Spinoza had his own belief. His conception was quite different from that of anyone else. His conception of God was non-personal (Non- Transcendent) and was the totality of everything that is immanent. He explained that our infinite Universe is one that has no outside and is also one big web where everything in it is connected. What he is basically trying to say is that God=Nature, God is the totality of everything that is. My View – Spinoza’s conception of God is quite absurd. There may or may not be a God but if there is, it is definitely not the totality of everything that is. The meaning of God is a higher supreme being that would have a higher consciousness than humans. There is a difference between nature and God. I feel nature is more on the lines of what he is trying to say but uses the word â€Å"God†. God can not be everything that is because then that would mean we are part of the make up of God and that is absurd. How can everything in the universe that has no conception of God be a part of God? His thoughts and ideas on this subject don’t add up in the end and don’t seem like an acceptable solution to the questions revolving around â€Å"God†. Ethics: On Interconnected Self- Spinoza’s’ View – Spinoza said that freedom of choice is an illusion and that everything that happens is part of a necessary order witch is completely rational. My View – If freedom of choice is an illusion and everything is already set to happen before it occurs†¦then why are we making choices in the first place? I believe we do have freedom of choice and that we set our own destiny. Everything will be set but is not set yet. We must make choices and decisions to get to where we want to or do not want to. This can be compared to a video game, the programmer and the player. The programmer sets al these scenarios, levels, obstacles, directions and gives the gamer various choices to make. The player goes through these obstacles, and makes choices where many possibilities are presented to him/her. Ultimately the game will finish one way or the other with the choices that the player makes. All these various different possibilities were laid out (each which had its own outcome) but the player made the decision to get to where he/she is now. Overall Comparison: After taking in everything these two philosophers have presented and evaluating their ideas, I have come up with my own thoughts. I believe Descartes had a much more reasonable and acceptable point of view than Spinoza. Descartes thoughts and concepts were easier to understand and coupe with. I disagree a lot with both of the two but my mind has a greater understanding of Descartes perspective. Spinoza was so special in his own way because of his unique ideas but his concepts on God and ethics seemed to far fetch. Descartes seemed to be on a perfect track until he took a couple things too far like God, trying to prove his existence. If we are to gain knowledge through sense experience then technically we have no knowledge of God, jus a compound of thoughts and ideas to create such a being. Overall I like Descartes philosophical way of thinking more than any other philosopher and feel we can learn a lot from him including helping ourselves to think in a more abstract philosophical manner. Sources Of Information: 1) A History of Western Philosophy : Hobbes to Hume (Second Edition) 2) individual. utoronto. ca/mtlin/god. pdf 3) www. utm. edu/research/iep/s/spinoza. htm 4) http://serendip. brynmawr. edu/Mind/17th. html 5) www. trincoll. edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/descartes. html 6) www. connect. net/ron/descartes. html.

Contagious Why Things Catch On By Jonah Berger - 979 Words

In the Introduction chapter of Jonah Berger’s book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, we are introduced to Howard Wein, a successful businessman in hotel management and in hospitality. Wein helped Starwood Hotels launched its sister brand and micro managed billions of dollars in revenue as Starwood’s corporate director in food and beverages. Despite his successful background, Wein fancied for a smaller, more restaurant-focused environment. Leaving his business prospects in Philadelphia, he moved to Philly to help design and launch a new boutique steakhouse called Barclay Prime. The concept of Barclay Prime was to deliver the best steakhouse experience in New York. Wein was imagining luxurious bounties of furniture and an extensive seafood bar, extending from the West Coast of America to the East Coast of Russia. And to add on to that, Wein also dreams of delivering food delicacies to his consuming eaters. While Wein maybe over the top, the problem is attracting customers and bringing awareness of Barclay Prime in the one of the most competitive areas for a restaurant to thrive. From statistics alone, twenty-five percent of restaurants closed within twelve months of opening their doors and raises up to sixty percent within the first three years. Wein, in a state of urgency, must generate a buzz. The one-hundred dollar Philly Cheesesteak. Wein reimagined Philadelphia’s own Philly Cheesesteak and recreated it, using finer and much more luxurious ingredients than theShow MoreRelatedContagious By Jonah Berger : An Insightful Novel1125 Words   |  5 PagesContagious by Jonah Berger was an insightful novel with many examples and reasons why products and ideas catch on. Throughout the novel, Berger gave various examples for the reader to thoroughly understand the material. He gave six key factors in which influenced the amount of contagiousness a product could potentially have. He used the acronym STEPPS to explain those factors. Factors that were interesting for the Public Relations profession were social currency, triggers, and stories. ManyRead MoreDr. Berger s Contagious : Why Things Catch On1626 Words   |  7 PagesCentral Theme The central theme in Jonah Berger’s book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, focuses on the six important principles of STEPPS that can make a good or service circulate quickly amongst the mass public. Berger explains the reason behind why people talk about a certain product and the resulting factors. The six â€Å"ingredients,† Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories, â€Å"cause things to be talked about, shared, and imitated† (Berger, 2013). Basically, STEPPS create