A yr later, the central government imposed a sweeping National Security Act that gave authorities wide leeway to criminalize speech and suppress dissent in a territory once known for independent courts, free-form laws, and newspapers. Pro-democracy lawmakers were arrested en masse and leading media outlets needed to be shut down. (Several defendants will face trial on Monday in the most important security law case so far.)
Then, for much of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government closed the territory’s borders and imposed among the world’s strictest restrictions on every day life.
Beaches have been closed for weeks. Playground equipment was cordoned off with police tape and a wire fence. Residential buildings have been closed resulting from several positive cases. And for a very long time, almost everyone coming to the town, including residents, was subject to a compulsory three-week hotel quarantine.
Thursday’s announcements were the federal government’s latest effort to rebuild Hong Kong’s crater-ravaged tourism industry. The city counted around 600,000 visitors last yr, up from greater than 65 million in 2018, the yr before the protests began.
In 2020, Hong Kong paid a public relations firm around $6 million to assist it “reconnect with the world and resume operations as soon as possible” as a high official put it last yr.
The government said this week that its six-month airfare deal, funded by a aid package in the course of the pandemic, will initially goal travelers from Southeast Asia and later mainland China and elsewhere. Most tickets They can be offered through Hong Kong-based airlines, including Cathay Pacific, while others can be given away through tourism-related corporations.
Dino Chen, 26, who works in Hong Kong’s public relations department, said that while he believed the campaign could attract tourists within the short term, the “unclear” atmosphere in the town’s political and cultural sphere made the general outlook for tourism became uncertain. (One example: Before Hong Kong’s long-awaited M+ contemporary art museum opened in 2021, pro-Beijing figures criticized the works in its collection as an insult to China and called for his or her ban.)
