Walking on the web

Those seeking socially-distanced cultural diversions can take a walk on the wild side without having to leave home. Operators like Walk in Hong Kong are tweaking their offerings to appeal to online participants. The cultural tour operator saw a 95 percent drop in business at the beginning of the pandemic last year. It was a clear sign that the earlier model of hosting events on-site had to change. The company began offering virtual and livestreamed tours in March 2020, and is now combining traditional walking tours with online ones.

"Our virtual tours are more like YouTube shows," explained Walk in Hong Kong's co-founder and CEO Paul Chan Chi-yuen. "People can duck in and out of them. They are entertaining and more interactive. We cover a wider range of topics: pets, dining and entertaining. For some of them, we will include a relevant guest host and that becomes a selling point."

He said that the number of participants and revenue earned had picked up by the end of 2020. "We have more local customers now. And we managed to keep all of our staff," said Chan.

With B2B representing approximately 80 percent of Walk in Hong Kong's business, Chan conducted everything from university orientation tours to guided insights to the city for corporate conferences. With business travel becoming a rarity, companies are increasingly seeking equivalent high-quality online experiences.

"We see a lot of opportunity in virtual tours," he said. "There is the physical advantage of being in two or more places at once, allowing us to do inter city tours." He noted that due to the nature of the internet, tours can be spliced with games, multiple choice quizzes, and other hooks to keep things lively.

"Previously, tourism relied on volume because of its low margins," Chan noted. "It was not a sustainable or resilient model. The pandemic had us re-examining how to attract clients by thinking about what is truly unique about our city. When we were catering to tourists, there was no need to think. Now, we consider how to enhance the city's appeal to locals with every tour."

Museum comes home

Opened after extensive renovations just before the pandemic struck, the Hong Kong Museum of Art suffered successive closures as social distancing measures were enforced. The organization had to come up with novel ways to circumvent uncertainty for art lovers and launched Art for Everyone@HKMoA which ran from March to May.

As part of the campaign, images of 100 pieces of art from the museum's four core collections were displayed on 490 billboards at MTR stations and tram stops, covering all 18 districts of the city. Twenty-three of these artworks were by local Hong Kong artists. To make the program more interactive, 10 of these were enhanced by augmented reality that viewers can bring to life using an app on their smart phone.

For example, viewers can watch an early 19th-century oil painting, A Chinese Lady, come to life, travel through time and arrive at the museum riding the MTR via their phone.

"Social distancing has become a normal part of our lives," said Nancy Lee, chairman of Friends of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the organizers of the campaign. "Augmented reality is a way to merge art and technology. By using the app, people can find art wherever they may be, and encounter beautiful works in unexpected places."