Random Talk Theory

Just a few days ago, I conducted a study to take a peak into the mainland Chinese perceptions of Hong Kong, using data from the social media platform Little Redbook. The results were quite revealing: it seems that among the younger generation on social media, Hong Kong is increasingly viewed as an ancient town tour site (古镇), diverging from its traditional image as a financial hub. This shift in perception might reflect the unique experiences of young people in mainland China, who currently face distinct challenges compared to other age groups. Given this context, I thought it would be interesting to contrast these findings with those from an "older" social media platform: Weibo. For those interested, my previous findings can be accessed here . To broaden the scope of this analysis, I further gathered a dataset comprising 52,256 user posts from Weibo, all posted since the full border reopening earlier this year (March to October 2023). This period also includes two major Chin...

It seems that Hong Kong will never be the same as before. Background Not long ago, news reports in Hong Kong media started to highlight the changing preferences of mainland tourists. The main theme was that, after two years of COVID-19 lockdowns, the high expectations of a boom in tourism were wrong. Mainland tourists did come to Hong Kong, but there were fewer, who spent less. The tourism industry is a critical component of Hong Kong's economy, contributing to approximately 4.5% of its GDP and employing around 257,000 people, accounting for about 6.6% of total employment in 2018 (GovHK, 2020). More than 80% of the total inflow of tourists was contributed by mainland visitors (Hong Kong Tourism Board, 2023). However, visitor arrivals experienced a significant downturn starting in 2019, which persisted until the full border reopening in February 2023. For more than three years, travel restrictions such as cross-border regulations, and quarantine requirements greatly diminished the v...