Hong Kong - Hong Kong is to promote itself as a Halloween destination for young tourists from mainland China, the city's tourism board announced Tuesday. The Hong Kong Tourism Board said it was concentrating its Halloween marketing to young people in the Chinese cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai.
The move comes as Halloween has become an increasingly popular festival in Hong Kong over the past 10 years with Ocean Park and the new Disney theme park staging special Halloween festivals.
Halloween is celebrated on the night of October 31, when traditionally children put on costumes to go on trick-or-treat tours around the neighbourhood.
The city's Halloween promotion was scheduled to run until November 2 and is part of a drive to focus on short-term visitors as the global economic slump is reducing the number of long-term tourists.
"The Hong Kong Tourism Board has already redeployed its marketing resources from the long-haul to short-haul markets," said chairman James Tien.
"Over the next few months, we'll step up promotions in such markets as mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and India to drive visitor arrivals to Hong Kong."
During last week's National Day holiday week in China, 481,987 visitors came to Hong Kong from mainland China, a 9.5-per-cent increase during the same period last year, the board said.
