Awards and Achievements

Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) regularly receive awards and accolades from the international media and the travel industry. Below is a selection of the most recent awards.

• Hong Kong was voted one of the top 10 travel destinations worldwide and the best in Asia in the Travelers’ Choice Destinations Awards organised by travel website TripAdvisor.
• In a survey conducted by Korea Travel Times, a leading travel trade journal in the market, HKTB Office in Seoul was voted first by travel industry partners in the “Best National Tourism Office Award”.

• The Meetings & Exhibitions Hong Kong (MEHK)’s “The Black Book - A MICE Guide for Hong Kong”, Gold Award in the “Brochures: Non-Profit Organisation” category
• The McDull Family Promotion Pop-up Book, Gold Award in the “Brochures: Special Purpose” Category
• Booth Design for International Travel Expo 2011, Hong Kong, Gold Award in the “Design: Trade Show Booth Display” Category
• Discover Hong Kong - AR Mobile Application, Silver Award in the “Emerging Media: Interactive Brand Campaign” Category
• Year of Rabbit Calendar 2011, Bronze Award in the “Promotion: Calendar” Category
• Discover Hong Kong - City walks Mobile Application, Honors Award in the “Promotion: Tourist/Travel Destination Campaign” Category
• MEHK’s Success Stories Video, Honors Award in the “Videos and DVDs: Marketing” Category

• The HKTB’s Visitor Services Department has won the following awards at the award presentation ceremony of the Customer Relationship Excellence (CRE) Awards organised by the Asia Pacific Customer Service Consortium:
• Bakky Cheng, Assistant Manager of Visitor Services received the “Customer Service Team Leader of the Year 2010 (Government/Subvented Organization–Contact Center)” award
• Emily Wong, Officer of Visitor Services was selected as the “Customer Service Professional of the Year 2010 (Government/Subvented Organization–Service Center)”
• The Meetings & Exhibitions Hong Kong (MEHK)’s “The Black Book: A MICE Guide for Hong Kong” and “MEHK Success Stories Video” received the Gold and Silver Awards in “Travel and Tourism” category respectively in the 2011 QUESTAR Awards.

• The HKTB received a number of awards in the 21^st Astrid Awards:
  
  • “2010 Festive Hong Kong” video, Grand Award in the “Video” category
  • “Hong Kong Halloween Treats Website & Scream Inception Campaign”, Grand Award in the “Websites” category
  • “Festive Hong Kong 2010” website, Bronze Award in the “Websites: Campaign Site” category
  • “Festive Hong Kong 2010” iPhone Game Series, Bronze Award in the “Special Projects: iPhone Application” category
  • McDull's Family Fun Guide to Hong Kong, Honours Award in the “Brochures: Travel / Tourism” category
  • McDull's Family Integrated Marketing Campaign, Honours Award in the “Campaigns: Targeted Marketing” category
  • Booth Design for PATA Travel Mart 2010, Honours Award in the “Special Projects: Exhibit Booth” category
• Hong Kong ranked by global visitors as Top 10 Destination Worldwide and Best in Asia in TripAdvisor’s Traveler’s Choice Destinations Awards

• The “Food and Wine Year Destination” campaign and “Live it. Love it!” poster series were awarded gold awards in the PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association) Gold Award 2010.
• Hong Kong was voted 1st in the “Best Islands” category of the Readers’ Travel Awards 2010 organised by travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler. On top of this, Hong Kong also came third in the Best of the Best Top 100 Travel experiences award category.
• For two consecutive years, Hong Kong has been named the “Best Business City in the World” in the annual readers’ poll organised by Business Traveller Asia Pacific – a travel magazine for frequent business travellers in the region. Hong Kong is also voted as the “Best Business City in Northeast Asia” for the third time in the same poll.
• In a poll run by online travel magazine Smart Travel Asia, Hong Kong was voted the “Best City for Business in Asia” for the second consecutive year.

• The “Experience Hong Kong” campaign organized by the HKTB in celebration of the 60^th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, was awarded a silver accolade in “The Ninth China Golden Awards for Excellence in Public Relations – Government and Non-Profit Organisations Category” by the China International Public Relations Association.
• The Annual Report 2008/09 received the Honour Award in the International ARC Awards, an annual competition honouring excellence in annual reports.

• The Meetings & Exhibitions Hong Kong (MEHK)’s “Converging Possibilities” print and online ad campaign received the Gold Award in the 18th annual International QUESTAR Awards competition.
• A popular interactive video “The Last 120 Hours of a Geek in Hong Kong”, was rolled out on YouTube by The Hong Kong Tourism Board in promotion of “Hong Kong WinterFest” in 2009. This online campaign won the “Excellence Award in Digital Communications” organised by the Foundation for Public Relations in Taiwan.

• Hong Kong has been named the “Best Business City in the World” and “Best Business City in Northeast Asia” in the annual readers’ poll organised by Business Traveller Asia Pacific – the travel magazine for frequent business travellers in the region.
• Hong Kong was named the "2009 Favourite City in the World" in a poll organised by the Business Traveller China.
• In the online poll run by the online travel magazine Smart Travel Asia in 2009, Hong Kong was voted the “Best City for Business in Asia” and the “Best City for Shopping in Asia”, and ranked the forth in the “Best Holiday Destination in Asia” category.
• The HKTB was awarded the “Best NGO” in the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) Tourism Award 2009.

• The HKTB’s Meetings & Exhibitions Hong Kong (MEHK) team won the Platinum Partner Award organised by Incentive Magazine. The award has invited over 64,000 planners from the incentive industry to vote for the best travel suppliers based on their quality and degree of professionalism and credibility and promotional support.

• Enhancement of the complete suite of HKTB consumer publications won the “Marketing Media – Consumer Travel Brochure” award; and
• Meetings & Exhibitions Hong Kong (MEHK) promotional video gained the “Marketing Media – Promotional Travel Video” award.

• In the global Online Consumer Survey on Travel and Tourism of the Asia-Pacific region polled out by the CNN International, Hong Kong was voted as the first among the cities in the region in three categories, namely "The Most Vibrant City Life", "Best Nightlife" and "Best Shopping".

• Online promotional initiatives of the 2008 Halloween Campaign and “Ding Ding” Tram Guide online version took Gold Award and Bronze Award respectively in the “Websites: Campaign Sites” category;
• Pan-regional Campaign: Hong Kong as Beijing 2008 Olympic Co-host City won Gold Award in the “Advertisements – Television: Campaign Series” category;
• Revamped HKTB official website Discoverhongkong.com took Gold Award in the “Websites: Non-Profit Organisation” category;
• The “Hong Kong as Beijing 2008 Olympic Co-host City” TVC gained Silver Award in the “Advertisements – Television: Non-Profit Organisation” category ;
• Meetings & Exhibitions Hong Kong (MEHK) promotional video won Silver Award in the “Video/DVD: Non-Profit Organisation” category; and
• The Year of the OX Calendar produced by the HKTB to highlight the celebrated Chinese New Year in 2009 took an Honour Award in the “Calendars: Other/Misc” category.

• HKTB offices in the Mainland were honoured by the travel trade magazine TTG China as “Best Overseas NTO in China”.
• In the Go Asia Award 2009, which is organised by the renowned German marketing association Go Asia, HKTB Frankfurt office was honoured the third of “Best Tourism Boards in Germany”. The poll conducted online to collect votes from visitors and consumers is to appoint winners amongst various categories, such as travel destination, airlines, hotels and tourism organisations in the Asia Pacific.

• The “Star” Ferry was rated first in the “Top 10 Most Exciting Ferry Rides in the World” poll organised by the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), the world’s largest organisation of professional travel journalists and photographers.
• Hong Kong was voted the “Best City for Business in Asia-Pacific” in the 4th Reader Choice Awards organised by DestinAsian – a high-end travel and lifestyle magazine in the Asia-Pacific region.

• In the 6th annual Readers Choice Awards organised by the renowned US travel trade magazine Travel Weekly, Hong Kong was selected the “Best City – Asia Pacific”.

• Hong Kong clinched several awards in Mainland China:
• “Best Destination (Business Travel)” in the Travel Weekly China Awards 2008.
• "Favorite City in the World” in the Business Traveller China Awards 2008.
• "Top Destination for Long Weekend” in the World Traveller Awards 2008.
• The Korean version of HKTB's official website Discoverhongkong.com was named the "The Most Powerful Website of National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) in South Korea" by the country's longstanding and best-selling travel newspaper, The Korea Travel Times. The paper rolled out an online survey from January to September 2008 to select the most powerful website among NTO websites around the world, based on the frequency of search made by consumers on various web portals.

• The HKTB won a number of awards in the Galaxy Awards 2008, including:
• The “50 Years of Tourism: Creating Milestones Together” Campaign took away the Gold Award in the “Public Relations – Other/Misc” category.
• The 2007 Best of the Best Culinary Guide won the Silver Award in the “Brochures – Consumer Education” category.
• The Hong Kong Reality Channel on the YouTube gained the Silver Award in the “Website – Other/Misc” category.
• The “Hong Kong Winterfest” Online Campaign dedicated to the Mainland China market won the Silver Award in the “Website – Community Awareness” category.
• The Pan-Regional Campaign: Hong Kong 2008 Olympic Co-host City gained the Honors Award in the “Advertising – TV/Campaign” category.
• Following the award in 2007, the HKTB office in The Americas was once again voted the “Best Pacific Asia Tourism Bureau” by readers of the American magazine Agent@home.
• In the 2008 Readers’ Choice poll organised by the US travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler, Hong Kong was voted the third top Asian cities.

• Hong Kong has been voted the Best Business City in Northeast Asia in the annual readers' poll organised by Business Traveller Asia Pacific – the travel magazine for frequent business travellers in the region.
• HKTB won a Silver Award for its “Living Culture Campaign” in the “Destination Marketing – Advertising/Marketing Campaign” category of the 2008 Magellan Awards, making it the only Asian tourism board to be included in the Oscars of the American travel industry.

• The Australian office of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has earned the laurel of the Best Tourist Office – International, in the National Travel Industry Awards organised by the Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA).

• Hong Kong has been voted by South Koreans as Asia Pacific’s Best Sightseeing City in the inaugural Seoul Tourism Awards 2008. Adding to the roll of honour, the HKTB’s DiscoverHongKong.com website has also been chosen by the region’s tourism professionals as Asia Pacific’s Best City Tourism Website.

• 2007 Best of the Best Culinary Guide won the Gold Award in the “Custom Publications – Produced for Non-Profit Organisations” category.
• The TV advertisements of “Hong Kong – Live it, Love it!” gained the Silver Award in the “Advertisements – Television” category.
• The “Hong Kong – Live it, Love it!” print campaign gained the Silver Award in the “Advertisements – Print: Campaigns” category.
• The My 1997 and 2007 music video featuring Mainland singer Ai Jing won Silver Award in the “Video/DVD: Produced for Non-Profit Organisations” category.

• “Live Love Print Campaign – Advertisements” took away Silver Prize of Print Campaigns category.
• “Roll & Action – Discover Hong Kong” Integrated Marketing Campaign won Special Prize of the City Tourism category.

• The HKTB won a Bronze Award in the “Best Overseas Convention Bureau” category organised by the UK’s Meetings & Incentive Travel Magazine.

• In the yearly Best Cruise Destinations poll of British cruise magazine Dream World Cruise Destinations, Hong Kong was voted among others in the Best Destination Experience – Independent Sightseeing and Best Turnaround Destination sections.
• Hong Kong has won the Best MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Convention & Exhibition) City Award in the 2008 Industry Awards organised by CEI Asia Pacific Magazine. The HKTB was also voted one of the best tourism organisations providing support services for convention and tourism.
• A special programme jointly produced by the HKTB and CBS Broadcasting Inc (CBS) has bagged the Silver Award (Feature Placement – Television) at the 51st round of HSMAI (Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International) Adrian Awards 2007. All Access Hong Kong, the award-winning programme, was aired on CBS’ The Early Show on 9 and 14 March 2007.

• The HKTB office in the Americas has been lauded as the “Best Pacific Asia Tourism Bureau” by American magazine Agent@home.

• The HKTB UK office was voted Best Asia/Pacific Tourist Board in the British Travel Awards 2007.

• Hong Kong was voted Favourite Overseas City for the second year in a row in the UK’s Guardian, Observer and Guardian Unlimited Travel Awards.

• “Roll… & Action! – Discover Hong Kong” Integrated Marketing Campaign got the Honors Award in the “Promotion – Tourist/Travel Destination Campaign” category
• DiscoverHongKong.com E-invites Design Campaign won the Honors Award in the “Website – Non Profit Organisation” category
• “Hong Kong – Through the Eyes of Celebrities” special TV programme gained a Bronze Award in the “Promotion – Other/Misc” category

• During the 2007 US International Film and Video Festival, the 2006 Discover Hong Kong Year – “Moments of Discovery” TVC won the first place in the “Corporate – Business, Government, Contracted – Travel, Tourism” category of the Gold Camera Awards.

• Hong Kong beat London and New York for the title of “Best Business City”, and was ranked the third “Best Tourism Destination” in the Global Traveler Awards.
• In the Lonely Planet Bluelist 2007, Hong Kong’s Chinese New Year celebrations was ranked as Best Value Entertainment Around the World.

• 2006 Discover Hong Kong Year “Moments of Discovery” – TV commercial (120 sec) won Silver Award of the Advertising: TV – Single Spot – Other Countries category.
• 2006 Discover Hong Kong Year “Moments of Discovery” – Print Advertising took away Bronze Award of Advertising: Print Campaign category.
• Culture & Heritage Celebration won Bronze Award of Promotion: Tourist/Travel Destination Campaign category.

• Readers of The Guardian, The Observer, as well as their joint Guardian Unlimited website, voted Hong Kong their Favourite Overseas City in the publications’ 2006 Travel Awards.
• Readers of the Mainland travel magazine Business Traveller China voted Hong Kong their favourite city in the world
• In an online poll run by the website Smart Travel Asia, Hong Kong was voted Best City for Business, Asia. Hong Kong International Airport also took the top spot in the Best Airports Worldwide category.
• Hong Kong was chosen as first runner-up in the Top Cities in Asia category of the 2006 Readers’ Choice poll organised by Condé Nast Traveler, a leading upscale travel magazine in the United States.
• Members of the Asia-Pacific travel trade honoured Hong Kong in the 17th Travel Awards organised by regional industry publication TTG Asia, in which Hong Kong International Airport was voted Best Airport and The Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre was ranked Best Convention & Exhibition Centre.
• The HKTB received a Merit Award in the National Tourism Organisation of the Year category of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation’s Aviation Awards for Excellence 2006.

• The 2006 Discover Hong Kong Year promotional DVD, Moments of Discovery, took away the Grand Award in the Best of Tourism Promotion category at the 17th annual Questar Festival held in New York.
• The Moments of Discovery TVC (120 sec) also won a Gold Award in both the "Associations, Government and Non-Profit Organizations/Other/Miscellaneous" and the "Broadcast & Cable: Tourism/Travel/Destination Promotion" categories of the Questar Awards 2006.

• The 2006 Discover Hong Kong Year Moments of Discovery posters won a silver award in the Posters category of the Astrid Awards 2006.
• The 2006 Discover Hong Kong Year Moments of Discovery TVC (120 sec) won an honour in the Advertisements - Broadcast & Cable category of the Astrid Awards 2006.
• The Young Office Ladies Booster Campaign won a bronze award in the Campaigns (Other/Misc: Promotion with 3rd party targeted market) category of the Astrid Awards 2006.
• The Hong Kong Experiences TVC aired on regional TV channels won a bronze award for the Best TV category of the 2006 4A's Media Awards.

• The HKTB's Hong Kong Experiences video won a gold award in the CVB/Destination/Convention Centre category of the Adrian Awards 2005.

• Hong Kong was voted "Favourite City in the World" by readers of Business Traveller China. The city's airport was also considered the "Best Airport in China".
• The HKTB's Hong Kong Experiences video was rewarded with a "Mention" at the Grand Prix International Film Festival in Vienna organised by the International Committee of Tourism Film Festival (CIFFT). Formed in 1989, the Committee selects the best tourism film/video in the world each year, which will receive the Grand Prix CIFFT, while the second ranked will receive a "Mention" as a sign of recognition.
• The HKTB took away a number of awards in the 16th Annual International GALAXY 2005 Awards, which honour excellence in product and service marketing. These included:
  • Discover a New Hong Kong video won a silver award in the Videos & DVDs – Travel/Destination category of the Galaxy Awards 2005.
  • The "Young Office Ladies Booster Campaign 2005" took away a bronze award in the Promotion – Targeted Marketing category.
  • The 2003-04 Annual Report was presented with an honour in the Annual Report – Non-profit Organisation category.

• Hong Kong was named "Destination of the Year" in the TTG Asia Awards 2005.
• The HKTB's "Hong Kong Movie Odyssey" advertising campaign won the "Best Travel & Tourism Campaign Award" by the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia, the second time the HKTB has won this prestigious award in the cable and satellite industry.
• HKTB's E-zine won the "Best E-zine Website" Web Award from the Web Marketing Association, which was founded in 1997 to help set a high standard for Internet marketing and corporate web development on the World Wide Web. This competition has been held for nine years and a record 2,100 entries from 33 countries and regions around the world were received in 2005. Judges include members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, content providers and webmasters.

• Readers of The Guardian and The Observer, respectively among Britain's most upmarket daily and Sunday newspapers, heaped praise on Hong Kong in the titles' Travel Awards 2005. Rating cities not only by the number of votes cast but also in terms of satisfaction, the readers voted Hong Kong into third place overall in the Favourite Overseas City ranking, the highest placing achieved by an Asian city, with a score of 95.7%. Among other Asian cities featuring on the listing were Tokyo (9), Singapore (22) and Bangkok (40).

• The HKTB's Hong Kong Experiences video was bestowed with an honour in the Association, Government & Non-Profit Organisation – Tourism/Travel/Destination Promotion category of the Quester Awards 2005. The video captures the emotional and magical moments between local residents and visitors and highlights Hong Kong's four core pillars of Shopping, Dining, City/Harbour/Green, and Culture and Heritage.

• The HKTB's marketing initiatives took away a number of awards in the annual Astrid Award, which honours outstanding achievement in specifically Design Communication. Running for the 14th year, Astrid Award symbolises the stellar qualities of creativity, craft, innovation and originality in design. This year, the Award received over 400 entries from 17 countries. The accolades won by the HKTB included:
  • "Hong Kong Movie Odyssey" campaign won a Silver Award in the Advertisements – Broadcast and Cable – Campaign Series.
  • Hong Kong Experiences video won a Silver Award in the Video – Travel/Tourism category.
  • "Trade Show Module Design for HKTB Worldwide Offices" took away a Bronze Award in the Special Projects – Exhibition category.
• At the 2005 US International Film and Video Festival Awards, the HKTB's Hong Kong Experiences video secured the first place in the Gold Camera Award while the Discover a New Hong Kong video was accorded second place in the Silver Screen Award.

• The HKTB's Four Hong Kong Experiences video was given a Gold Award in the Travel Video category by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) during its Annual Conference in Macau.

• Readers of Meetings & Incentive Travel magazine in the UK voted HKTB's meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions division as the "Best Convention Bureau" in the Incentive Travel Category. The voting was conducted online on the magazine's official web site and is completely independent. The magazine asked their subscribers to judge on a minimum of 7 awards by e-mail, which results were monitored to ensure that there were no duplications.
• A total of 25 awards were given under the Meetings and the Incentive Travel categories. In addition to the accolade achieved by the HKTB, Hong Kong was ranked 10th place in the voting for "Top Conference Destination", while the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) came second under the category of "Overseas Purpose-Built Venues".

• Hong Kong was selected as one of the 14 classic destinations in the world by National Geographic Traveler magazine.
• Hong Kong was voted by readers of Guangzhou Daily as the most cosmopolitan destination in 2004.
• The HKTB's Hong Kong - Live it, Love it! TV commercial won a Gold Award in the 2004 Adrian Awards organised by the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International.
• Hong Kong was chosen by corporate meeting planners as one of the most popular CEI locations and the third most popular destination for incentive business in a survey by CEI.
• Readers of Australia's Luxury Travel Magazine have rated Hong Kong the fifth best overseas city and the highest ranked in Asia in the publication's inaugural Gold List awards.