The Travel Industry Council (TIC) on Tuesday announced a new programme to arrange in-depth tours for tourists at shopping malls during mega events in Hong Kong.

In collaboration with the hotel and retail sectors, the TIC has put 14 itineraries from six travel agencies on the China Mobile "MyLink" app targeting mainland visitors.

A bar-hopping tour in Tsim Sha Tsui during the Wine and Dine festival and a tour featuring Hong Kong's urban legends are among those on offer.

Fanny Yeung, the TIC's executive director, said the programme aims to leverage the city's mega events and encourage visitors to explore shopping malls.

"Because right now a lot of individual travellers seldom visit shopping malls, and it didn't help us in our retail area. So we would like to include the retail part into this kind of in-depth tour to target this group of travellers," she said.

Annie Yau Tse, chairwoman of the Retail Management Association, said five shopping malls will be covered, namely the IFC mall in Central, K11 Musea and THE ONE in Tsim Sha Tsui, Langham Place in Mong Kok, and the Temple Mall in Wong Tai Sin.

Tse said participants will receive gifts and discounts.

"After the pandemic, individual travellers come to Hong Kong for tourism experiences rather than shopping, so the current capacity is enough. [The new initiative] to bring group tourists to shopping malls is well within our capacity to accommodate," she said.