The Executive Director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board on Saturday hailed the usage of social media in promoting the SAR, as he hinted at new incentives in the pipeline ahead of summer holiday season.

Speaking on a Commercial Radio programme, Dane Cheng said that since visitors were now focusing more on having “in-depth experiences” during their trips, and not specifically travelling for “shopping”, the board has been collaborating with social media platforms to provide travel-related content to woo visitors, including inviting influencers visit the SAR to share their travel tips.

“I think we've been very effective and particularly in the mainland and overseas. A lot of the time, I think it's important that these social media are reposted or retweeted organically,” he said.

“The important thing is that he content has to be genuine and authentic.”

Cheng also hinted that the board was preparing a raft of new incentives for summer, and more details would be revealed next week.

Cheng said in the face of strong competition from Japan and the rest of Asia, there would be more event promotion to attract long-haul visitors, especially from Europe and America.

“Particularly with the new measure that China is increasingly opening up visa-free visits from a lot of the overseas countries. That would give Hong Kong tremendous advantages, because people can come to Hong Kong, and then from Hong Kong going into the mainland,” he said.

The mainland has recently been offering more countries visa-free travel, the latest being Australia and New Zealand following Premier Li Qiang's visit to the two countries earlier this month..