How Hong Kong’s tourism has been affected by the protests happening in 2019

Abstract

This dissertation aims to investigate whether or not the protests that took place in Hong Kong had an effect on the tourism industry there. This is important to find out because of the potential issues that may come from having large scale protests occurring in a small territory, and the possible further research which can be done in the area. An online questionnaire with 22 different questions that collected quantitative and qualitative data was created and promoted using several different social media platforms. During a 7-day period 102 individual answers were collected anonymously, which then were thoroughly analysed to find an answer for the hypothesis. The research showed that tourists most likely felt that Hong Kong became too unsafe for them to visit while the protests happened and even afterwards thought that the overall safety of Hong Kong had suffered. In conclusion it was found that there was a strong correlation between the reduction of tourists visiting Hong Kong and the time that the protests occurred, though it was also indicated that it was a combination of the police response and the protests themselves which cause the tourists to feel threatened and unsafe while visiting the city. This in combination with many countries cautioning their citizens from visiting Hong Kong therefore meant that people chose to stay away during the city’s time of crisis. Hong Kong’s tourism industry was negatively affected by the protests.