Recovery of Tourism Demand in Hong Kong from the Global Financial and Economic Crisis

This study aims to predict the recovery of the Hong Kong tourism industry from the current global financial and economic crisis. Based on the latest statistics available, this study provides updated forecasts of tourist arrivals to Hong Kong from 10 key source markets over the period 2010-2015. The forecasts include annual and quarterly forecasts of tourist arrivals and the market shares of the source markets concerned. An econometric method is used to estimate the demand elasticities as well as their confidence intervals, followed by the interval demand predictions. The total tourist arrivals to Hong Kong are projected to reach 53.8 million by 2015 with the interval forecasts between 38.4 and 74.4 million, representing an annual growth of 10.48% on average against 2009, with an interval ranging from 4.44% to 16.60%. As far as individual source markets are concerned, their demand recovery takes varying paces. Overall, tourism demand in Hong Kong is relatively resilient to the global financial and economic crisis