To investigate and analyse how people in Hong Kong consumed the hotel staycation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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].

My decision for producing a commentary on this paper was due to the interesting theme and research embarked on. This is especially impacted by the uncertain times that each and every person - more or less - has experienced over the past year and a half. I also decided to add my opinion on this as I think it is interesting to view the comparisons between Hong Kong’s - a completely different culture and city - approach to staycations and the UK’s.


“Staycation’s” were vital to the people of Hong Kong last year; the city was quite successful in retaining the spread of the virus, however, many locals were experiencing an urge to travel and escape their home – causing a threat to the containment of COVID-19 (Solomon and Khan, 2021). I think it is interesting how the paper explains the adaptations the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) made to attract domestic tourists. In the UK, accommodation providers set out to make their experiences more personalised and memorable to entice staycations over outbound travel, which is similar to the idea of themed rooms. Both locations created modifications to make travellers experiences more memorable.


Tourism only contributed to 5% of the city’s GDP, therefore the industry has little impact on Hong Kong compared to others. This is where Hong Kong’s overtourism stems from: Locals are seeing little benefits, and are becoming annoyed due to increased living costs, overcrowding and the carbon footprint it is creating (Poon and Koay, 2021). From this, and as mentioned in the paper, conflicts have lessened, and staycations have helped improve Hong Kong’s overtourism and environmental impacts.


It is unfortunate to read how many locals lost their tourism jobs and livelihoods from the negative impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had. The primary research undertaken, was an interview with an adult male who worked within a travel agency mainly for Indian tourist, whose job became lost at the hands of the virus. Having his perspectives on what these uncertain times meant for him allowed the paper to be more relatable for me, personally, as I was unable to work being in the hospitality industry and this caused stress for myself so I can understand his opinions.

The author related this interview to their research very well, by undressing how companies like HKTB’s plans to increase domestic tourism were forces that interrupted travel agencies operations and contributed to their downfall. Accumulate (2021) provide evidence that this is also true for UK travel agency companies.


Overall, I found this a very enticing and thought-provoking read: I had not thought about what may benefit one company or region, may implicate another company. This paper provided raw and fascinating details that I would enjoy researching about more in-depth in the future.


References:

Accumulate (2021) The Rise of Staycations: 2021 and Beyond. Kent, UK: Accumulate Capital.

Poon, W.C. and Koay, K.Y. (2021) Hong Kong Protests and Tourism: Modelling Tourist Trust on Revisit Intention. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 27(2), 217-234.

Solomon, F. and Khan, N. (2021) Failed ‘Travel Bubble’ Dashes Hopes of Stir-Crazy Vacationers: Again. The Wall Street Journal, 19 May.