Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on LGBT studies
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Gay tourism development in a destination – Hong Kong local residents’ perceptions
Dr. Jay Barry Ng and Yeung Man Wah
ABSTRACT:
Amongst Chinese Society, Hong Kong is one of the most open cities toward LGBT that seamlessly blends East and West, tradition and modernity. This drives the emergence of the gay tourism and sheds a new light of tourism sector to contribute the development of tourism. Further developing the gay tourism, the local residents’ supporting and perceptions towards this segment of tourism are inevitable factors to explore this new phenomenon towards their home city. However, there is limited research study how local residents perceive the development of gay tourism in Hong Kong. This research conducted a quantitative approach via in-depth interviews to explore how local residents perceive the development of gay tourism by doing the thematic analysis. Interestingly the results showed that there are two groups of local residents, that are the groups of neutral and opponent. Majority of respondents are in neutral group, they are in comparative young age and with mixed sexuality. Also, respondents in neutral group have comparatively weak religion relations. For them Hong Kong is a gay friendly city; for opponent group, it has comparative small group size, and majority of respondents are in middle age. Respondents in opponent group have comparatively strong religion believe. For them, Hong Kong is not perceived as a gay friendly city. It is recommended that the HK SAR government can make the favour policy and strategy to increase the friendliness of gay community by promoting in the popular attractions such as Lan Kwai Fong, Wan Chai areas, in order to encourage the development of this tourism sector and improve the local residents’ overall perceived images. To conclude, majority of people in Hong Kong uphold a neutral perception towards gay tourism development due to the impact of Chinese traditional values – the golden mean. Further study is needed to identify why limited people support gay tourism in Hong Kong.
keywords: Chinese culture, Gay tourism, LGBT, Tourism impact, Tourism development