$20m worth of dining vouchers for locals up for grabs

Hongkongers can grab a HK$100 dining voucher offered by the Tourism Board from next Wednesday as the board has prepared a total of 200,000 vouchers worth HK$20 million to boost the restaurant business and local consumption in the city.

The board will distribute the "Hong Kong Night Treats for Locals" vouchers in two batches next Wednesday and on January 10, with 100,000 vouchers per batch.

Citizens will need to get the voucher through the board's e-platform of the Discover Hong Kong website (https://www.discoverhongkong.com/hk-eng/index.html). The board said people can sign up free of charge on the e-platform from before the first batch of vouchers to be released at 10am next Wednesday. The vouchers will be given on a first-come, first-served basis.

The second batch of vouchers will be released at 10am on January 10.

But people can only redeem the HK$100 voucher when they spend at least HK$100 on their dine-in orders from over 1,100 selected restaurants and around 100 bars around the city after 6pm daily. All of the restaurants are certified under the Quality Tourism Services Scheme.

"Since the start of the give-away of 'Hong Kong Night Treats' visitor dining vouchers in November, the campaign has been well-received," said board executive director Dane Cheng Ting-yat.

"Therefore, the Hong Kong Tourism Board will ride on the Christmas and New Year festivities to extend the campaign to locals to share the joy as a joint gift from the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the trade and encourage the public to cherish the holidays with their friends and family in town while supporting local businesses," he added.

The public can also look for the city's latest and trendiest offers and through the board's one-stop platform, including holiday promotions and shopping privileges at over 100 malls across the city.

A newly opened large shopping mall has offered electronic vouchers for supermarkets or for use in the mall when customers reach a certain amount of spending. Some shopping malls also offer dining coupons and winter lucky draws for patrons.

The board also said about 3.29 million tourists visited the SAR last month - 2.42 million of which were mainland tourists and about 859,000 of which were tourists from other places.

This brought the total number of visitors to the city to 30.1 million between January and November this year.

Visitors from short-haul markets increased monthly by more than 20 percent last month, showing a more significant increase, the board said.