[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello again and welcome to Pearl magazine Hong Kong recently hosted travel Expo the city's first consumer oriented travel Carnival it featured over 300 exhibitors hoping to meet the Trav needs of Hong kongers as citizens have shown that 69% are willing to spend more on travel this year compared to last according to a survey by an online travel platform Pearl magazine dropped by to look at the trends in travel for Hong kongers halfa
r can travel applies to Hong Kong even though it's a relatively small territory and you can't drive much more than 2 hours during Co Hong kongers feeling trapped in the city discovered the joys of camping and this continues today they can go to the campsite locally in Hong Kong uh the new at the new teritories and they drive their car into the campsite uh just like this and it's easy for people to enjoy car camping the of the rack Rider car club says a roof rack along with a tent like this with
everything included will set you back about10 to 12,000 he says he's been seeing more demand for this type of camping gear from those with cars in Hong Kong despite borders being reopened mainly they are families and couples because it's easy when you when you drive a a stylish car and put on a w rre they enjoy the moment at the camp side and the family time they don't need to bring many gears because they have car so if you want to just it looks like a fun and economical way to travel but how e
asy is it to set up yes can you show me how this works yeah very easy just uh unlock this the Y yes just and open it and can pull out the shter we need to extend it first just a little bit longer okay great yeah yes it's okay okay then we can roll our shelter out just keep rolling okay keep rolling okay okay so just roll it out to the end and then we can just put the bar through the hole little hole oh yeah I see it and we are we are done yeah that's just like that unlike flying there is no weig
ht limit to what you can bring it's more about what you can fit into your car yeah when you go car camping you can bring all the heavier gears like the player the speaker des and I guess it all everything fits on the roof rack yeah and and use your back yeah back seat continuing our walk through the Expo we came across a tour for singles according to a survey 41% of Hong Kong Millennials and Jen ear expressed a desire to have meaningful travel experiences with their loved ones in this category t
hey top the list in APAC the tour company says they are targeting those searching for their soulmate while also enjoying travel soour is a uh sub brand for our uh parent company match dating so uh we aim to gather single people together and then if they would like to really find the one their love for their life that we can actually help in match dating as well it's the same goal tour and actually for the terms and condition the client have to sign and they have to declare that they are single a
nd so that they are eligible to join Kara kuang says the singles tour was the idea of the company owner who is single and likes to travel and believes there is demand for this based on the growth of their dating platform and number of active users actually there are more and more people who are single right now and they are good quality people and with a good job with good characters so we are actually targeting people to um come together and we would like to gather the good quality people toget
her and then let's have some fun together newly launched the company is starting with local tours in Hong Kong and places like chuncha saong and Tao it cost $699 to join it includes the tour the one day tour and then uh uh one lunch included and then the happiness and The Adventurous that you might meet potential soulmate she says they plan to launch tours overseas once there's enough people signed up then we are actually can do overseas like Japan Korea Singapore or other places that you can im
agine as well but if you prefer the company of your pet when you travel one operator is launching pet tours for owners who want to experience their overseas holidays with their fur babies this is published in 2021 just recently and we just started this project this month shizuka U says they get roughly 5 to 10 inquiries a week about leisure travel with dogs we are trying to go to Japan first just because it's the closest one and there were more Demands a lot of people have been to Japan just as
human only but they wanted to bring their dogs too yeah and then Japan there's no quarantine anymore but if you want to travel with your pet be prepared to spend both time and money the paperwork takes 8 months to process because it includes blood tests and other checks for your dog to make sure they pass requirements and this alone will set you back around $40,000 as for the air ticket plus tour price you better sit down and race yourself based on the size of the dog going as a commercial fligh
t and coming back as a private jet so uh between 200,000 to 320,000 with our tour included that we plan that's right your dog flies back on private jet with you since commercial flights returning to Hong Kong apparently don't allow owners and pets to travel together of course you could cut cost on the trip if you don't Avail of the tour in which case your four-legged child's ticket will only set you back around $10,000 to $230,000 shizuka says the package is actually reasonable compared with oth
er dog tour packages and there is include seven nights for you and your dog at pet friendly hotels and joining pet friendly tours so in a kushu area there's a a wall with a three she the dot and have the little faces popping out so you go have a have a look and we have picked some uh temples or the parks or the restaurants that you can bring your pets together some attractions that you can do with your pets to um really experience the whole Japan together with yourself and your dog and go around
for those who might not want to spend that much to Holiday with their pet they can send their dog to a dog Hotel while while they are on holiday outside of Hong Kong we charge for the do size yeah from3 $40 to 4 41 uh $410 per days they will have their own wom the independent WS also indoor air conditioning um everyday day we have two times for the show show in the back outdoor the gas area Su to him says dog owners can add obedience training and swimming to the pack as well he says that demand
for booking at the hotels has risen and that they're always at least 75% full we don't really get uh empty room always yes so maybe today uh adult try in and another track out like this so switch and switch and switch social media is a huge driver of travel according to a survey 89% of Hong kongers make travel bookings from online review RWS and recommendations and food is one of the top experiences when it comes to travel this restaurant booking platform is making it easier to plan your pallet
based travel before you even take off from Hong Kong which countries are you in so we're in Japan Thailand Singapore Taiwan and maau these are all Hong Kong tourist hotpots so they can now book restaurants when they travel Jenna sun says their restaurant booking app has about 50,000 restaurants to choose from in those countries since it is a local Hong Kong booking app the language is provided English and Chinese make it easier to book the restaurants overseas Japan we've um we've integrated wi
th tabog um and Singapore they all have their local local uh booking engines that we partnered with Jenna says it's convenience as people often do browse the restaurants destination cities before they go on holiday before they travel especially um you know when they're planning their trips during weekends or in the evenings they they like to browse through our app and then and then book the restaurants and since Japan is a top destination we decided to scroll the options so now you're in Tokyo o
kay and then you have different types of food let's try let's say Yaki niku okay and all the bookable restaurants that's Yaki niku will show up and then should we book for a future date sure okay let's say we're going on Sunday choose your number of seats and then this is to show to the local staff right yes so that's in Japanese yes that will match the booking number to see the best we couldn't leave the Expo without stopping by the Japan Pavilion the number one destination for Hong kongers I c
an say uh we got inquiries and customers apprach in Us in every minute According to some data uh we can see that Hong Kong is the top five Market going to Japan Esther Kai who works with a large booking company says there are Hong kongers who travel to Japan several times a year for Holiday I think Tokyo and Osaka is still the top the uh number one number two Market uh destination for Hong Kong people actually Hong Kong people are not satisfied just going to these two places and they exploring t
o kushu Okinawa Nagoya hokido as well she says the weekend makes it even more attractive as you literally get more bang in this case Sushi and service for your buck with the Japanese experience Japanese y depreciating yes so everything in Japan uh for Hong people they would think oh it's really cheap you can uh maybe you spend 1,000 Hong Kong dollar in Hong Kong to have a Japanese meal but with $1,000 H dollar if you uh in Japan you can eat a lot of things fresh delicious and the surface as well
Hospitality she says peak times to travel there includes spring and summer holidays our parents they bring their children to go to Japan Tokyo Osaka there are Theme Park Amusement Park Japan is a really kids friendly country April is Al Another Peak because there are Char blossom in Japan which you can hardly find in Hong Kong the travel Expo reportedly saw over 200,000 visitors who hopefully found something worth taking time off for when we come back preserving pre-World War II residential bui
ldings in Hong Kong stay with us welcome back to Pearl magazine the Advent of Urban Development has seen most of the pre-World War II residential buildings demolished and their plots used for other purposes but some owners have decided to preserve and Revitalize these old buildings and turn them into common areas allowing the public to use the space Architects suggest the government offer incentives to owners to encourage preserving old residential buildings Alice KH has the report we pull a box
of five color cakes inside get some Exquisite packages of nine items of those five color cakes over here Rocky Y is the owner of this Chua Bakery in 1969 his father moved the shop from Jima to this three story high tenement building in kalon city which was built before World War II they make and sell the cakes on the premises here this premise already has a restaurant license so we don't need to make a big change or renovate to get the food factory license that's why we chose to rent here actua
lly is huge the ground floor is about 900 square ft we do the baking ourselves after renting this place for a couple of years Rocky's father decided to buy the whole building the uring family lives on the upper floors and runs a bakery on the ground floor this this kind of shop house tradition was very popular at the time but this style of operation of a pre-war tenement is not so common anymore to me of course it's convenience 30 seconds and I'm at a shop it's convenience to go up and down we b
ought it for $240,000 and have been living here since 1975 when I was 15 years old this is a very old building and we are selling intangible Heritage Food no one knows the exact year when this pre-war building was built but records show it's been in existence since at least 1941 the architecture shows features from early last century this kind of architecture has special features such as columns and a CO arcade which provide shelter from rain and sun there used to be columns on both sides but no
w they are hard to find in colum City there are only three columns s most were demolished actually the Steep staircase is a special design of this kind of vintage building you can defend yourself in case of a robbery I can do a workout by climbing the staircase the urban renewal Authority has launched Redevelopment plans in kalon City and some pre-war buildings will be demolished Rocky and his family have been living here and running a shop for half a century he hopes The Authority can consider
preserving his building Alfred hoe has a great interest in tenament buildings he says old buildings can reflect Lifestyles and the wisdom of people in an era look at this pre-war tenament the column is western style while the rack is Chinese style for instance the bamboo so the architecture is a mixture of Chinese and Western Styles but the government and the public may have neglected this type of building in 2022 H team did a survey and found that only 160 pre-war tenement buildings and Western
buildings still remained in Hong Kong about 60% of them did not receive any historic building grade we check documents and site surveys if we couldn't find any document in the building's Department it's very likely that the building is built before World War II because a lot of relevant documents are lost we would check with the record department the second world war is a water shed for Hong Kong a 1940 government report shows that there were about 20,000 tenement and Western buildings in the u
rban area but 80 years later less than 1% or no more than 200 are still in the city in the government's revitalization and conservation program l sunun in MOG was preserved and turned into a Chinese medicine clinic in 2012 it's the only tenement building graded as grade one historic building ho hopes the government will offer more incentives to Property Owners to preserve these buildings the blue house and green house in wanchai mon 618 and Western buildings along the Prince Edward Road West the
se are all different ways of preservation most of the pre-war tenement and Western buildings are privately owned the question is how to preserve privately owned buildings without depriving their property and development rights apart from maintenance subsidies the government should offer a financial incent such as concessions on rates and rent and concessions on some taxations this would encourage Property Owners to preserve e e e it is the people in the community we provide a space for them to b
uild a Rel ship it's like a community center for them a few years ago Vanessa and her brother bought this tenement block she says it has old Hong Kong Vibes I think it's a beautiful historic architecture I believe its value will appreciate at first I wondered how to preserve it and what should I do with it [Music] it's difficult to find a property owner who wanted to preserve [Music] it after finishing the preservation of this building I learned that grade three grade 2 historic buildings can st
ill be demolished I can pull it down if I want to I can demolish it anytime and maybe face criticism there are fewer and fewer of these historic tenement buildings in Hong [Music] Kong they are an important part of our history the Hong Kong story is Within These historic ten [Music] buildings that's our show for this week join us on Pearl magazine same time next week bye for [Music] now [Music] [Music] he
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