As of January 2020, there are 5424 accredited tourist guides in Hong Kong. They began to lose their regular work from the last Lunar New Year’s Eve (24 January 2020), when all tour groups from the mainland were temporarily banned from travelling to Hong Kong. Until today, all Hong Kong’s border checkpoints except three are closed under the Prevention and Control of Disease Regulations. Furthermore, the compulsory hotel quarantine arrangement of 14 days or 21 days for mainland and overseas travellers is deterring leisure travel through these three border checkpoints. Between July to December 2020, the total visitor arrivals dropped 39.1%; and between January to September this year, a drop of 98.2% year on year to about 63,000 visitor arrivals.

Tourist guides’ livelihood that depends on people traveling has been devastating in the last 22 months. It is estimated that 90% of Hong Kong tourist guides are freelance workers, and their livelihoods depend not only on regular work but also on tips from appreciative tourists. They are unlikely to have paid leave, unemployment relief or any other benefits enjoyed by many salaried workers.

Soon after the closure of some borders in early 2020, the Hong Kong Association of Registered Tour Coordinators (HARTCO), together with several inbound trade associations, called on the Government to roll out relief measures for the inbound industry. In April 2020, the Government announced the availability of Tourism Industry Support Scheme 2.0 under the Anti Epidemic Fund. Each in-service tourist guide received a one-off cash subsidy of HK$15000 for three rounds in 2020. In the most recent round this year, each one received a cash subsidy of HK$7,500.

While most the tourist guides are staying home, we arranged internet-based tour product and guiding experience sharing sessions to stay connected with members. They were also trained to use a mobile application of audio system, namely DisVoize, as an alternative solution to speaking to a group of tour members who are required to keep a social distance.

When no tourist groups are in town, opportunity was created for travel agents and tourist guides to operate local tours for residents. In August 2020, the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) launched a “Spend-to-Redeem Free Tour” programme, which encouraged residents to spend on retail or dining to redeem a free tour. The HKTB invited travel agents to propose and operate the tours for the programme. A total of 45 tours and 190 tours were offered in two rounds (November 2020 and June 2011), creating guiding jobs for tourist guides. Other than guiding job under this programme, tourist guides were also recruited to take up the role of programme facilitators, one for each free tour operation, to assist in the smooth execution of the free tours in compliance to Government’s social distancing and pandemic control guideline for local tour groups. The third round of this free tour programme will roll out in January 2022 and will offer another round of job opportunity for tourist guides.

In addition, the government has offered an incentive scheme to encourage travel agents to organise Green Lifestyle Tours for residents. This cash incentive scheme not only encourages travel agents to stay active but also generates guiding jobs for tourist guides throughout its duration – from January 2021 to March 2022.
Tourist guides have also been given alternative short-term employment in Government’s Community Vaccination Centres (CVC) in 24 locations in Hong Kong. Between May to December 2021, an estimation of 230 tourist guides were employed as part-time Registration Officers – the job openings specially created by Government’s Job Creation Scheme under the Anti-epidemic Fund.

Tourist guide’s bi-lingual/multi-lingual proficiency, inter-personal communication skill, problem solving skill in dealing with unexpected event and group behaviour management skill are applicable to the newly created roles. This short-term employment will end when all CVC (except nine) cease operation on 31 December this year.

The different support schemes and programmes above have created new learning curve and alternative job opportunities for Hong Kong tourist guides amid current pandemic-induced tourism bust. While looking forward to re-opening of the borders at the earliest possible time and revival of Hong Kong’s tourism industry, many of us in the industry do not expect leisure travellers to return anytime sooner. Hence, tourist guides’ livelihoods will not get better for first the six months of 2022.

From now until border reopens, tourist guides still need alternative temporary job opportunities to sustain livelihoods. We are aware of government’s plan to relocate the CVC to some public hospitals in 2022. We call on government’s continued support to directly transfer the batch of tourist guides with prior CVC experience to work at hospital addresses for a prolong period. Furthermore, tour guide’s presentation skill and storytelling skill are applicable to docent duties in sites of interests such as museums, heritage buildings and visitors’ centres in country parks. We call on the government support in creating additional job opportunity for tourist guides in these sites, which are mainly managed and operated by several government departments.

It is important to retain the current pool of tour guides and prevent loss of specific human capital, we will need trained and experienced tour guides to readily serve tourists when the borders re-open.