The Hong Kong Tourism Board on Monday officially kicked off Hong Kong Summer Spectacular, a two- month promotional campaign.

James Tien, chairman of the Tourism Board, said Hong Kong was focusing on "potential visitors from the Chinese mainland and short-haul markets."

The campaign would run until the end of August.

There will be a wide range of special offers from the tourism- related sectors, including discounts and privileges for visitors across different businesses such as dining, shopping, sightseeing, transportation as well as hotel offers.

Authorities will also co-operate with Yahoo! HK by collecting hip and trendy information from local residents and uploading it to a dedicated website. Visa will also launch a Go Discover Hong Kong with Visa Lucky Draw so as to stimulate spending.

The Tourism Board has earmarked 80 percent of its 48-million-HK-dollar (6.15 million U.S. dollars) summer promotion budget for promotional campaign in the Chinese mainland and short-haul markets.

Promotional campaign in the mainland have started as early as mid-June and the budget for the market has been doubled to 20 million HK dollars (2.56 million U.S. dollars), it said.

Visitor arrivals from the Chinese mainland rose to 16.9 million in 2008, representing 57.1 percent of the total visitor arrivals in the same year. Residents in dozens of mainland cities have been allowed to travel to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on an individual basis with a permit since 2003, driving consumption in the city.

(Xinhua News Agency June 30, 2009)