When it comes to lost tourist seasons, few places have been hit as hard as East Asian countries. Stricter government pandemic responses in the region made most leisure travel impossible for more than a year after tourists first started flocking back to Italy and Greece.
Two years after imposing restrictions that limited arrivals exclusively to residents, Hong Kong finally announced an easing at the end of September.
Within hours of the announcement, the Cathay Pacific (CPCAF) website crashed amid a rush of searches. The airline set up a "virtual waiting room" that had some people cooling their heels for as long as 30 minutes just to see which flights are available.
But even with a rush of people planning trips that have been put off since 2020, bringing the city back to its 2019 status of the world's most visited city will not be easy.
A Long Travel Dry Spell is Ending
The updated rules will do away with required quarantines, but still require visitors to take as many as 12 covid tests over an eight-day period.
Travelers will also not be able to access high-risk areas such as restaurants and bars for the first three days after arriving.
While rules like that will surely deter many non-essential visitors for months to come, the Hong Kong tourism board has already sprung into action to entice some of them.
Back in April 2020, Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) bought out 500,000 tickets to help its domestic airlines during a prolonged dry spell as well as reignite tourism when the time was right.
The combined cost was HKD$2 billion or roughly $254.8 million USD.
"During this difficult time, the AA has been trying its best to support business partners," AAHK said at the time. "As an integral part of the aviation industry, the AA is also facing a significant shortfall in revenue because of the traffic plummet.
On Friday, Hong Kong tourism board representatives started telling media outlets that it would start handing out those tickets sometime next year.
You'll Need To Wait To Get Your Free Ticket
While details on how the tickets will work and what one will have to do to get one are yet to be announced, the tourism office will launch a promotional campaign aimed at bringing back tourism by bringing people there for free in 2023.
"We hope to give the maximum room to reconnect Hong Kong, and to revitalize our economy," Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee told news outlets at a press conference.
Some residents who have been cooped up in Hong Kong since 2020 will also be eligible to receive outbound tickets to visit other countries.
While Cathay Pacific is by far the best-known airline based in the Chinese administrative region, local airlines like Hong Kong Airlines and HK Express also take people in and out the area.
Meanwhile, London-based airline Virgin Atlantic recently cut its Hong Kong service over the logistical challenges of flying in Russian airspace after the country invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
"The airport authority will finalize the arrangement with airline companies," Dane Cheng, executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, told BBC. "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."
