Chapter 9 - The Orient is Hong Kong? Cultural Representations of Hong Kong in Tourism Materials and the Missing Voices of the Tourists

Summary

Abstract

The Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA), established in 1957, aimed to promote the city as a world-class tourist destination, highlighting its traditional Chinese culture and fusion of East and West. Overseas promotional materials, such as brochures and posters, were distributed to promote Hong Kong as an iconic destination. This chapter examines promotional items from the 1930s to the 1970s to illustrate how the concept of “the Orient is Hong Kong” was used to boost tourism. It also investigates local travel agencies’ and tourists’ comments in newspaper columns to explore how the tourism authority reinforced an oriental theme in their promotional agenda yet overlooked the real expectations and impressions of tourists and locals. I argue that tourist perceptions of Hong Kong differed from the official discourse of HKTA, proving that urban discourses cannot be easily constructed by authorities.

Keywords: tourism discourse, tourists’ voices, cultural representation, Hong Kong tourism

Since 1956, “Travel and Tourism” has become a regular chapter in the Hong Kong Yearbook, an annual review of public policy and city development printed by the Hong Kong government. The reviews documented the transformation of the tourism industry and revealed the government's tourism promotion and marketing strategies. In the yearbooks, Hong Kong was commonly framed under the ideas of “Pearl of the Orient,” “Shopping Paradise,” “Food Paradise,” or a place where “East meets West.” These labels were not only used to impress foreign travellers, but also to shape local understanding of the city. Here, questions emerge: how were these labels created? Did they reflect or formulate tourist impressions of the city? In particular, what do the terms “Orient” and “Paradise” signify?

In John Urry's iconic publication, The Tourists Gaze, he proposed that “One's eyes are socio-culturally framed and there are various ways of seeing.” In his opinion, a city's image as perceived by tourists is not merely their actual perception, but rather a visual representation constructed through the lens of politics, culture, religion, and more. He further indicated that cinema, television, and digital media were the key sources that enabled the power of the visual gaze to take shape in modern tourism.