To investigate and analyse how people in Hong Kong consumed the hotel staycation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Author: Wing Yin WAN
1 Commentries
Abstract: The paper aimed to find out how people in Hong Kong consumed the leisure and tourism product, hotel staycation during the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, how the unstable circumstance changed local’s consumer behaviour. An interview has been conducted with a male who is an owner of a travel agency who had closed his company and how he cope with his job crisis.
Keywords: Staycation, Covid-19, job mobility, how Covid-19 impacted staycation
The purpose of the conference paper was to identify how local people from Hong Kong willing to consume the hotel staycation during the pandemic. In terms of the Covid-19, there is a slump in the field of tourism and hospitality sectors globally. The retail industry in Hong Kong even the whole world is facing a huge economic recession which may take few years or even longer to recover. With the closure of most border and travel restrictions, Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) associated with the hotel has launched a variety of impressive staycation options which included a themed room and dining package to encourage people to explore the city and offer them some experience of Hong Kong tourism, as well as boosting the local consumption and maintain the exposure of Hong Kong.
“Staycation” is a new trend and term particularly happen during the Covid-19 time, it mainly stimulates the domestic economies and promote the local culture to residents (Rosu, 2020). The conference paper has taken few hotels as an example, such as The Peninsula Hong Kong, Cordis Hotel etc. They are the 5-star hotel located in tourism hotspot, they offer their guests daily breakfast buffet, room that is gazing the Victoria harbour and decorating their hotel room for the guests to take Instagram-able photoshoot, which is a way for creating brand awareness and marketing skills to build up the community network in return. Besides, staycation also solved the problem of over-tourism in Hong Kong as well as lower the carbon footprint. In the case of Covid-19, there are lots of hospitality workers lost their job which leads to a high unemployment rate (Su, Dai, Ullah and Andlib, 2021). With the external influences, workers got sick, isolation, absent for the workplace, or even a numerous of death which directly reduced the job offers temporarily and impacted the long-term economic changes (Ugur and Akbiyik, 2020).
For this study, it decided to conduct the primary data in terms of an interview. The study had invited a travel agency owner, who is a 41-years old male and one of the victim during the Covid-19 time. He is now working with government for helping people to arrange the vaccine bookings which is full time a job of half year contract. The data mainly go through the topics were: job mobility, development of local tourism and consumer behaviour. The data was to analyse for the part of literature to link together and prove the data was found. The participant brought up lots of interesting opinions and information regarding to the perspective of India, as their company mainly serving Indian, helping them to organise some local tours and hotel booking activities etc., these are the main source of company’s income. The effect of tourism industry in India keep continuing become seriously, as they caught the variant in relation to the higher unemployment rates (Kaushal and Srivastava, 2021). In terms of the air travel, his company does not have any Indian travellers come over to Hong Kong and the scheduled trips have been cancelled, this is the main reason his company forced to close and also leads to the challenges from job mobility. Moreover, in order to maintain the tourism sectors, Hong Kong Tourism Board are planning to do the local tours and staycation discount giveaway to boost local’s consumption and hospitality (Ng, 2021), which stopped the travel agency business and ability as the consumer can book the hotel through online system themselves, which has changed their consumer behaviour. His experience call tell how the Covid-19 changed his future path and even the world economy.
The pandemic has brought out the positive and negative impacts towards the tourism and hospitality sectors. Also, the crisis is also a great opportunity to rethink the business models for the future and rebuild the confidence of tourists when the pandemic is over.
Reference:
Su, C.W., Dai, K., Ullah, S. and Andlib, Z. (2021) COVID-19 pandemic and unemployment dynamics in European economies. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja. Available from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1331677X.2021.1912627 [accessed 6 June 2021].
U?ur,N, G. and Akb?y?k,A. (2020) Impacts of COVID-19 on global tourism industry: A cross-regional comparison. Tourism management perspectives. Tour Management Perspectives.36, 100744. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7474895/ [accessed 24 May 2021].
Kaushal, V. and Srivastava, S. (2021) Hospitality and tourism industry amid COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives on challenges and learnings from India. International Journal of hospitality management 92, 102702 Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7528873/ [accessed 6 June 2021].
Keywords: Staycation, Covid-19, job mobility, how Covid-19 impacted staycation
The purpose of the conference paper was to identify how local people from Hong Kong willing to consume the hotel staycation during the pandemic. In terms of the Covid-19, there is a slump in the field of tourism and hospitality sectors globally. The retail industry in Hong Kong even the whole world is facing a huge economic recession which may take few years or even longer to recover. With the closure of most border and travel restrictions, Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) associated with the hotel has launched a variety of impressive staycation options which included a themed room and dining package to encourage people to explore the city and offer them some experience of Hong Kong tourism, as well as boosting the local consumption and maintain the exposure of Hong Kong.
“Staycation” is a new trend and term particularly happen during the Covid-19 time, it mainly stimulates the domestic economies and promote the local culture to residents (Rosu, 2020). The conference paper has taken few hotels as an example, such as The Peninsula Hong Kong, Cordis Hotel etc. They are the 5-star hotel located in tourism hotspot, they offer their guests daily breakfast buffet, room that is gazing the Victoria harbour and decorating their hotel room for the guests to take Instagram-able photoshoot, which is a way for creating brand awareness and marketing skills to build up the community network in return. Besides, staycation also solved the problem of over-tourism in Hong Kong as well as lower the carbon footprint. In the case of Covid-19, there are lots of hospitality workers lost their job which leads to a high unemployment rate (Su, Dai, Ullah and Andlib, 2021). With the external influences, workers got sick, isolation, absent for the workplace, or even a numerous of death which directly reduced the job offers temporarily and impacted the long-term economic changes (Ugur and Akbiyik, 2020).
For this study, it decided to conduct the primary data in terms of an interview. The study had invited a travel agency owner, who is a 41-years old male and one of the victim during the Covid-19 time. He is now working with government for helping people to arrange the vaccine bookings which is full time a job of half year contract. The data mainly go through the topics were: job mobility, development of local tourism and consumer behaviour. The data was to analyse for the part of literature to link together and prove the data was found. The participant brought up lots of interesting opinions and information regarding to the perspective of India, as their company mainly serving Indian, helping them to organise some local tours and hotel booking activities etc., these are the main source of company’s income. The effect of tourism industry in India keep continuing become seriously, as they caught the variant in relation to the higher unemployment rates (Kaushal and Srivastava, 2021). In terms of the air travel, his company does not have any Indian travellers come over to Hong Kong and the scheduled trips have been cancelled, this is the main reason his company forced to close and also leads to the challenges from job mobility. Moreover, in order to maintain the tourism sectors, Hong Kong Tourism Board are planning to do the local tours and staycation discount giveaway to boost local’s consumption and hospitality (Ng, 2021), which stopped the travel agency business and ability as the consumer can book the hotel through online system themselves, which has changed their consumer behaviour. His experience call tell how the Covid-19 changed his future path and even the world economy.
The pandemic has brought out the positive and negative impacts towards the tourism and hospitality sectors. Also, the crisis is also a great opportunity to rethink the business models for the future and rebuild the confidence of tourists when the pandemic is over.
Reference:
Su, C.W., Dai, K., Ullah, S. and Andlib, Z. (2021) COVID-19 pandemic and unemployment dynamics in European economies. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja. Available from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1331677X.2021.1912627 [accessed 6 June 2021].
U?ur,N, G. and Akb?y?k,A. (2020) Impacts of COVID-19 on global tourism industry: A cross-regional comparison. Tourism management perspectives. Tour Management Perspectives.36, 100744. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7474895/ [accessed 24 May 2021].
Kaushal, V. and Srivastava, S. (2021) Hospitality and tourism industry amid COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives on challenges and learnings from India. International Journal of hospitality management 92, 102702 Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7528873/ [accessed 6 June 2021].