Island ferry travel during COVID-19: charting the recovery of local tourism in Hong Kong

H. Y. Lee and Kevin Yin Kiu Leung

Current Issues in Tourism, 2022, vol. 25, issue 1, 76-93

Abstract: With stringent immigration controls implemented by governments around the world, the year 2020 has seen global aviation and tourism industries grind to a complete halt. However, COVID-19 seems to have been the catalyst for the rise of local tourism around the globe. While the literature has long focused on the demand and supply of international tourism, the significance of local tourism should not be overlooked. This paper uses a novel and comprehensive mixed methods approach that considers 1) internet keyword search trends for tourist destinations, 2) news announcements on social media platforms, 3) ridership data provided by ferry companies and 4) participant observations in the field to examine the growth of local tourism in Hong Kong during the city's first and second waves of COVID-19, shedding light on the growth of rural, island destinations in the city. By investigating the trends and patterns of local tourism in Hong Kong, this article offers recommendations for policymakers and tourism stakeholders not only in Hong Kong but also around the world to facilitate the development of local tourism. The paper concludes by asking readers to consider the myriad possibilities of repositioning tourist destinations to offer alternative tourism forms that are more sustainable and can be resilient to negative events such as COVID-19.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2021.1911964 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:25:y:2022:i:1:p:76-93

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcit20

DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2021.1911964

Access Statistics for this article

Current Issues in Tourism is currently edited by Jennifer Tunstall

More articles in Current Issues in Tourism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().