Revitalization of industrial buildings into hotels: Anatomy of a policy failure

Communities are faced with the conundrum of what to do with obsolete industrial buildings. Revitalization through adaptive reuse is seen as one option, with many buildings being converted to hotels. This paper analyses the policy by the Hong Kong government to encourage adaptive reuse of under-utilized high rise industrial buildings. It was launched over 20 years ago, with hotel conversion permitted since 2000. To date, though, few successful hotel redevelopments have occurred. Through in-depth interviews with key informants, secondary data analysis, and multiple site visits, the paper analyses why the policy has failed. Informants identified four broad themes, including core weaknesses of the policy itself, pragmatic development complications, building-specific reasons and various contextual issues.     

Destination Image of Taiwan From the Perspective of Hong Kong Residents: Revisiting Structural Relationships Between Destination Image Attributes and Behavioral Intention

Destination image plays an important role in how tourists make their travel and purchase decisions. This study examines the perceived image of Taiwan as a travel destination from the perspective of Hong Kong residents. The Hong Kong outbound tourism market is important for Taiwan. Using a self-completed questionnaire, this research examines the destination image of Taiwan among 213 Hong Kong residents. The results indicate that affective image is a stronger predictor of travel intention than cognitive image. Affective image also plays a mediating role in the relationship between cognitive image and behavioral intention. Hence, affective image is an important intangible quality for today’s destinations.     

Backpackers in Hong Kong – motivations,preferences and contribution to sustainable tourism

This paper examines the backpacker market in Hong Kong, in terms of profile, motivation, preferences, and contribution to sustainable tourism development. The purpose is to provide an understanding of this market to help in marketing and promoting services and products that meet backpackers’ needs as part of expanding Hong Kong’s target market. Currently, Hong Kong relies on tourists from mainland China and recent reports reveal the issue of social conflicts between mainland tourists and Hong Kong residents. Based on a survey of backpackers in youth hostels and hiking trails in Hong Kong, this study revealed that backpackers are pushed by the search for new ideas and pulled by the uniquefood culture of Hong Kong, preferring to experience such a unique food culture in a traditional setting. Moreover, they are less likely to spend on international brands in Hong Kong as part of promoting sustainable tourism development.     

The impact of reporting frequency on the information quality of share price: evidence from Chinese state-owned enterprises

As a major global exchange, the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) only requires semi-annual reporting whereas other major exchanges including the ones in Chinese mainland require quarterly reporting. We argue against the traditional view that higher reporting frequency is necessarily more beneficial. The decision on reporting frequency depends on how the information is being processed by the recipient traders and the results are not obvious. Using a sample of Chinese companies duallisted in both China A share market and SEHK (AH shares) as the experimental group and mainland’s companies listed on SEHK (H shares) only as the control group, we apply the difference-in-difference (DID) method to investigate the impacts of reporting frequency on stock information quality. The results suggest that after China A share market require quarterly financial reporting for all listed companies in 2002, the information asymmetry of the H tranche of AH stocks increases. Different from prior studies, the results suggest a negative association between stock information quality and financial reporting frequency. We argue that the increased information asymmetry in the H tranche is caused by the noise spilled over from the A tranche. We conduct multivariable GARCH tests and find evidence supporting this conjecture.     

The Relative Importance of Impulse Buying in Asia Pacific Countries:

In this study, buyers were classified into three categories, namely planners, partial planners and impulse buyers, based on the consumer's product category buying intention and specific brand buying intention prior to entering stores. Five hundred and sixty eight and one hundred on-street interviews were conducted in New Zealand and Hong Kong, respectively. The results indicated that the proportion of impulse buyers in New Zealand was rather small (27%) when compared with that of planners and partial planners (50% and 23%, respectively). In contrast, the Hong Kong study found that the incidence of impulse buying behaviour (45%) was more common that the other two types of behaviours. However, despite the difference in the level of impulse buying behaviour between the two coutries, all the types of buyers in both countries agreed that low price was the primary stimulus that induced impulse buying.     

昆明轨道交通站点周边地区城市设计探讨

轨道交通站点周边地区由于建设开发强度大,建筑密度高,其建筑群体空间往往对周边城市环境带来压迫感。本文以香港成熟轨道站点地区已经建成的城市现状作为实证研究对象,从建筑群体高度控制和开放开放空间设计两个方面,分析总结其城市空间设计经验,给昆明轨道站点周边地区的城市设计以启发。     

香港科技创新发展研究——基于2018—2021年香港财政预算案

香港特别行政区第五届政府自任职以来展现出致力推动本地科技创新发展的强大决心并投入大量资源和精力。本文以本届香港特区政府发布的4份财政预算案为基础,采用定性研究方法对其进行解构分析,从特区政府角度考察香港科技创新发展政策的侧重点及当前发展趋势。研究发现,本届特区政府在支持香港有关科技创新发展政策上侧重于关注资金投入、平台建设、人才培养、企业研发及STEM教育5个方面,逐步形成以发展自身优势科研领域,打造智慧城市,争夺全球科技人才,引领经济转型升级为主的科技发展趋势。最后,针对香港目前面临的发展困局,提出了推动政策落实、融入粤港澳大湾区建设、打造国际化平台等推动科技创新长远发展的政策建议。     

港澳珠大桥的方案选择与财务可行性分析

首先介绍了港澳珠大桥的主要方案及分歧所在,然后从区域经济角度进行客货量预测,根据客货量预测和区域基础设施的发展规划,探讨大桥的功能定位并选择最佳方案——中线方案,最后根据客货量预测探讨了大桥的财务可行性,得出结论,港澳珠大桥财务可行。     

Exchange‐rate volatility and US–Hong Kong industry trade: is there evidence of a ‘third country’ effect?

In an effort to better understand the determinants of trade flows worldwide, researchers have recently incorporated external volatility (in addition to that of the partners’ bilateral exchange rate) into their models. The so‐called ‘third country’ effect is present if adding this term changes the bilateral volatility estimates that are found when external volatility is omitted. This study examines US exports to Hong Kong for 143 industries, and imports from Hong Kong for 110 industries, and finds two key results. First, expected inflation due to Hong Kong's dollar peg leads to increased US exports in a large number of industries. Second, comparing our results with those of a previous study shows strong evidence of a ‘third country’ effect, especially for US imports. Nonparametric tests suggest that these effects differ by sector: for both exports and imports. Manufacturing industries that enjoy a large trade share are less likely to experience this effect once external volatility is incorporated into the analysis.     

Revisiting the expatriate failure concept: A qualitative study of Scandinavian expatriates in Hong Kong

This article advances the understanding of expatriate failure, which remains a contested social phenomenon in international work life as well as scholarly research. The study challenges the definition of expatriate failure and its inherent biases, i.e., the epistemological primacy of the firm level and the failure/success binary. We argue that this qualitative study of 51 Scandinavian expatriates in Hong Kong can contribute to advancing theory on the expatriate failure concept by asking individual expatriates what constitutes failure to them. By applying social constructionist and social anthropological ideas to the expatriate failure concept debate, we develop the internationality thesis which demonstrates a discrepancy between the expatriates’ perceptions of successful international assignments and the actual nature of their lived lives; many expatriates desire to enrich their lives through experiencing an international/intercultural and adventurous lifestyle, but, in fact, living lives with limited intercultural exposure and interaction. We conclude by proposing a reconceptualisation of expatriate failure in terms of offering both a new definition and approach to researching expatriate failure in which time/duration, context, and geographical location need to be taken into account. We believe the new approach can overcome some of the empirical unsoundness of mainstream definitions.