With borders opening post-pandemic, Indonesia plans to attract more visitors to the country. The authorities have set an ambitious target of 7.4 million tourist arrivals to the country for the year.

“We are rolling out the red carpet to Chinese tourists. We welcome them and we hope to attract more of them in 2023,” he said at a lecture organized by the Hong Kong-ASEAN Foundation on March 10.

Chinese tourists have favored Southeast Asia for their travels, accounting for 22 percent of all visitors to the region before the pandemic.

Of the 32.3 million visits made by Chinese tourists to Southeast Asia in 2019, 6.4 percent of those travels were to Indonesia, and they spent an average of US$1,114 per visit in Indonesia. This translates into an enormous room for growth for arrivals to Indonesia.

There is clearly scope to do more to forge closer cultural ties between Indonesia and China. Tourism is a starting point for these ties to blossom, and here is where Hong Kong can play a key role.

Hong Kong is a major global financial center, playing the important role of connecting mainland China with the world. Vibrant and energetic, it is often described as the city that never sleeps.

Post-pandemic, Hong Kong is confidently back on the world stage and ready to welcome visitors back, tourists, businesses, and investors alike.

Hong Kong launched the “Hello Hong Kong” campaign recently, which included a mega giveaway of 500,000 free round-trip air tickets, to revitalize the tourism industry. The authorities hope the campaign can attract tourists from Southeast Asia, including Indonesia.

In Indonesia, the 11,510 free tickets on offer were snapped up almost immediately after the campaign began at noon on March 15 even though the campaign was due to run for days. Similar scenes played out in Singapore and Thailand.

The early signs are promising. The month of March alone was packed with multiple events, beginning with the Clockenflap Festival, Hong Kong’s biggest annual arts and music fest. The festival staged a grand return to a sell-out crowd after a four-year hiatus, featuring acts such as British rockers Arctic Monkeys and French pop rock band Phoenix.

Art Basel presented its show at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre with 177 galleries, with global auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s holding in-person VIP events as wealthy overseas collectors return.

The Hong Kong International Film Festival returned on March 30. The event screened more than 200 titles – including four world premieres and 32 Asian premieres – across 12 days.

The month concluded with the Hong Kong Sevens, the high-profile rugby tournament, making a full-fledged comeback, electrifying spectators that filled the Hong Kong Stadium.

The city is enhancing its status as an international wealth hub and attracting wealthy elites to base their family offices there. The Wealth for Good Summit, which took place in Hong Kong on March 24, gathered over 100 representatives from global family offices to discuss wealth management opportunities.

Hong Kong has a world-class infrastructure that renders it uniquely equipped to host, convene, and facilitate cutting-edge exhibitions and displays of an impressive array of arts. It is in a good position to host a wide range of exhibitions, festivals and events, serving as a cosmopolitan and bustling regional tourist hub.

Such infrastructure extends beyond the hardware to event management personnel and highly trained professional service sector that has been the core pillars to the higher end of Hong Kong’s tourism industry

As tourists and investors from Southeast Asia return to Hong Kong, these events represent great opportunities for cultural exchanges to build mutual understanding and appreciation, in return leading to more partnerships. These exchanges will also spur more Chinese tourists to visit Indonesia and gain deeper insights into the country and its culture and customs.

Hong Kong is the most international city in China, geographically located near its ASEAN neighbors, and has the benefits of the One Country, Two Systems policy. The city has always been an important financial center where east meets west, as well as a key connector to mainland China.

With the global reopening, Hong Kong is in the ideal position to play an important role in deepening ties between China and Indonesia in all aspects.

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The writer is chairman of the Hong Kong-ASEAN Foundation, an independent platform dedicated to strengthening China-ASEAN relations through Hong Kong. This year, it kick-started the lecture series with Minister Sandiaga Uno as guest of honor. Indonesia, the rotating chair of ASEAN and the biggest economy of the trade bloc, is a strategic partner for China and Hong Kong.