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Young Post,

P.O. Box 323,

Tai Po, N.T.

Dear Sir/Madam,

In the middle of 1997, thousands of foreigners visit Hong Kong. Their major purpose in visiting Hong Kong was to witness the change of sovereignty of Hong Kong. They were eager to participate in the historical moment of Hong Kong. However, after this period, the number of tourists visiting Hong Kong decreased. What are the factors contributing to this decline? In this essay, I¡¦ll discuss the reasons for the decline and share my ideas of promoting tourism.

Bird flu crisis is one of the reasons for the decline. At the latter half of 1997, many furore events have happened in Hong Kong and one of them is bird flu scare. This scare makes tourists fear of visiting Hong Kong. Several Hong Kong citizens have been infected with bird flu H5N1. This has been  the first time in human history that H5N1 attacks human beings. Due to the wrong messages about the bird flu scare, tourists decide to go to other countries in Southeast Asia rather than Hong Kong. Japanese media has vaunted the number of deaths because of H5N1 in Hong Kong. This leads to a sharp decrease in number of Japanese tourists. This was not an isolated incident. It occurs in countries other than Japan. This leads to the decline in number of visitors.

Moreover, economic turmoil in Southeast Asia also adds burden to the problem. Tourists from Southeast Asia are the majority in the total number of visitors in Hong Kong every year. However, economic turmoil has decreased the number of tourists going to Hong Kong as people in South-east Asia do not have money to spend on traveling. Therefore, there is a sharp decrease in number of tourists.

Furthermore, some sellers in Hong Kong are unscrupulous. They trick the tourists very often. For example, they sell some products of poor quality but at a higher price. Some taxi drivers even overcharge tourists. The tourism in Hong Kong, therefore, has gone down.

Apart from the above problem, there are many other problems that are adversely affecting our tourism. We have to take action to solve this problem and provide a better situation for the growth of tourism. I suggest that we should promote courtesy campaign. It should be our top priority. Since all citizens are well mannered, this will attract a lot of tourists. We can ask the famous pop-stars such as Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok to appear in an advertisement or a function to promote the importance of courtesy in Hong Kong. Besides, we can ask the shops such as G-2000, U2, to teach the salesmen to be polite, for example, serving customers with a kind smile. On the other hand, local and foreign customers can also vote the best salesman of the shop. This can improve the reputation of Hong Kong.

Nevertheless, Hong Kong Tourist's Association can initiate to organize some international functions. On the 1st of July in 1997, due to the handover of Hong Kong, many ceremonies were held. This attracted a lot of people flocking to Hong Kong. This proves that international functions can help to promote tourism. Thus, I suggest Hong Kong to hold some international sports matches. We can arrange some strong football team, for instance, Manchester United, Liverpool, to play football matches in Hong Kong. Besides, we can also hold international banking conference. Thousands of fans or bankers will come to Hong Kong. It will boost the number of tourists. However, the government should pay more attention and money to improving the sites for organizing activities. Otherwise, this suggestion should not be tried out.

Nonetheless, Hong Kong should set up laws to eliminate the unscrupulous vendors from the market. As I have mentioned earlier, these vendors¡¦ disgusting means of sales are spoiling the tourism industry in Hong Kong. As Hong Kong is a shopping paradise, tourists, visiting Hong Kong, like to go shopping. They are interested in shopping in‘l"ladies street¡¦. If we still allow the dishonest vendors to sell in our market, their deception will give a poor image to tourists. No tourists will spend money in Hong Kong any more. To regain the tourists¡¦ confidence, we should punish the unscrupulous vendors by fining and sending them to jail. The consumer council should check the quality of the services industry and encourage the public to report the unscrupulous vendors to the council so that these vendors can be prosecuted and eradicated from the industry. Purifying the services industry is the only gateway to improve the tourism industry.

All in all, tourism contributes a lot to GDP of Hong Kong. We can make money out of it. Since it is essential to Hong Kong people, all Hong Kong citizens should take the responsibility to promote Hong Kong as a tourist paradise. What we can do is to keep Hong Kong clean and be polite to tourists. If we do not do that, we will not be able to enjoy the benefit from tourism.