Hong Kong to Issue Free Airline Tickets in 2023 to Attract Tourist Back to its City-State

Hong Kong will offer free airline tickets to attract tourists to its city-state following the pandemic.

Once the city-state coronavirus limitations are lifted, Hong Kong’s tourism board intends to give away 500,000 airline tickets worth HK$2 billion ($254.8 million).

According to Dane Cheng, executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, “once the government announces it will remove all COVID-19 restrictions for inbound travelers, we’ll roll out the advertising campaigns for the free air tickets.”

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Hong Kong government implemented stringent travel regulations, including making visitors quarantine for two weeks in a hotel.

Since September, the restrictions have been lifted; however, the number of tourists visiting the city-state has drastically decreased.

The most recent statistics from the tourism board show that between January and August 2022, just over 183,600 persons traveled to Hong Kong. Even while that is a considerable increase over the previous year, the BBC reports that it is still far behind the pre-pandemic figures of 56 million in 2019.

A spokesperson from the Hong Kong Tourism Board said that It’s not clear which airlines will receive the free tickets.

According to BBC, the tickets will be distributed in 2023.