Will new pandas boost Hong Kong tourism? It’s not black and white

If Hong Kong is to return to pre-pandemic levels of visitors, it must go beyond pandas and seek out bona fide mega events

Mike Rowse

Published: 4:30pm, 25 Aug 2024

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I’m not trying to be a party pooper, but it’s time to calmly consider the implications of the birth at Ocean Park of panda twins. In all the excitement, some have made rather exaggerated claims. For example, welcome though the births are, they are not going to dramatically boost tourist numbers. And talk of a “panda economy” is, frankly, fantasy.

Let’s start with the good news. Any panda birth is a triumph as natural breeding attempts are apparently infrequent. Artificial insemination has been used to preserve the species but, despite this success, it is still relatively rare.

According to Suzanne Gendron, retired executive director of zoological operations at Ocean Park, the fetus is sometimes absorbed by the mother rather than being brought to term. It follows that twins are even rarer and, in the wild, one of the cubs is easily lost as the mother has only enough milk to nurse one.

What makes the recent Hong Kong births even more remarkable is that both Ying Ying and Le Le are a bit long in the tooth – the former is thought to be the oldest female to give birth, at one day shy of her 19th birthday, equivalent to 57 for a human. The twins are being fed with their mother’s milk supplemented by additional supplies from the panda research centre in Sichuan province.

Two more adults are being gifted to the city next month by the central government. If both twins survive the next three critical months, Hong Kong will then have six pandas. That is very exciting, and I would imagine many Hong Kong residents would visit Ocean Park to see them.

What will be the impact on tourism? The first thing to take into account is that many other places have pandas in their zoos under arrangements reached with the central government and Sichuan authorities. They include countries spread across western Europe, East and Southeast Asia and the Americas, as well as Qatar and Russia.

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These are precisely the kind of long- and medium-haul markets from which Hong Kong aims to draw well-heeled tourists. But they already have options closer to home if they are content to see pandas in captivity. And if they want to see them in a more natural setting and are prepared to fly long distances to do so, then surely they would choose Sichuan itself.

That doesn’t mean the Hong Kong pandas will have zero impact on local tourism. Hong Kong has two world-class theme parks – Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park. Visitors do come to the city to go to the former.

Few visitors come here specifically to go to Ocean Park, but if they are here for other reasons, then the presence of so many pandas may make them decide to visit the park and perhaps extend their stay. The pandas are a useful addition, but not a game-changer.

In their enthusiasm, some have floated the idea that pandas should be incorporated into the branding of Hong Kong, with copyrighted products and logos being developed and adopted by all members of the Hong Kong family, including Cathay Pacific. Try as I might, I find it hard to spot the pot of gold at the end of the “panda economy” rainbow.

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For one thing, as pointed out earlier, Ocean Park is by no means unique in hosting this endangered species. So is the difference between six animals and two really so meaningful? The panda logo is already well established as representing the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

A casual internet search uncovers thousands of royalty-free panda logos. If a part of China deserved such a distinctive adaptation, surely it would be Sichuan province itself rather than Hong Kong.

The desire to find a new, distinctive way to attract visitors to the city is understandable. A press release issued this month by the Hong Kong Tourism Board shows just how far we still have to go in the recovery from the events of 2019 and 2020.

In the first seven months of 2024, the city played host to some 25 million visitors, of whom more than 19 million were from the mainland. A simple mathematical extrapolation suggests we are on course for a total of about 43 million for the full year. This compares with the more than 60 million we were attracting before the Covid-19 pandemic.

If we are going to shoot for a return to those dizzy heights, then we are going to have to look beyond pandas. We need some bona fide mega events. Once the Kai Tak Sports Park opens, hopefully in time for the 2025 rugby sevens, then we will have a competitive venue for major entertainment and sports events.

Entertainment superstars are never cheap. The kind of sports events that draw large numbers of visitors and extensive media coverage are also expensive and tend to be competitive rugby and football matches, Formula One grand prix and tennis or golf tournaments for which the prize money is sufficient to attract the world’s top players.

We should dust off our F1 motor racing file. Fortune has given us a top golf tournament with the LIV Tour. Perhaps in the short term we should focus on retaining it by not building housing in the middle of the fairway.

Mike Rowse is an independent commentator