Category: Hong Kong 🇭🇰

Months of protests in Hong Kong have made traveling to the city a potentially dicey proposition

2019-10-06 / Downshift

Eric Lam and Tian Chen, writing for Bloomberg »

Since June, repeated demonstrations have filled its streets, including marches estimated at a million or more people and a sit-in that shut down the airport. Rail services were suspended across the network for the first time in more than a decade on Oct. 4 and 5 after a government ban on face masks led to city-wide violence.

The protests were initially triggered by an extradition bill and later expanded to include demands for more democracy and the resignation of Chief Executive Carrie Lam. There have also been violent clashes with police and vandalism against mainland-linked businesses and train stations.

Most Expensive Countries To Live In 2019

2019-04-11 / Downshift

According to CEOWORLD Magazine:

1.🇨🇭 Switzerland
2.🇮🇸 Iceland
3.🇳🇴 Norway
4.🇧🇸 Bahamas
5.🇱🇺 Luxembourg
6.🇯🇵 Japan
7.🇩🇰 Denmark
8.🇭🇰 Hong Kong
9.🇰🇷 South Korea
10.🇮🇪 Ireland
11.🇫🇷 France
12.🇳🇱 Netherlands
13.🇮🇱 Israel
14.🇧🇪 Belgium
15.🇫🇮 Finland

More interesting world ranking stats here.

China will be the world’s top tourist destination by 2030

2018-11-23 / Downshift

Chinese authorities have recognized that tourism is a key pillar of their economy, and they continue to invest heavily to improve infrastructure and standards, in addition to opening up the country with increasingly tourism-friendly policies and initiatives.

At the World Travel Market in London, Euromonitor International’s Head of Travel Caroline Bremner said: “Destinations like China are poised for a successful performance in inbound tourism, with China set to overtake France as the leading destination worldwide by 2030.”

The report estimates there will be 127 million arrivals in China each year by the end of the next decade, compared to 126 million in France and 116 million in the US.

And as household incomes and standards of living continue to rise, more Chinese are predicted to be travelling overseas in the coming decade than any other nationality.

High speed rail travel between Hong Kong and mainland China just became a reality

2018-09-27 / Downshift

The new bullet trains to southern China promise to be far quicker than existing cross-border rail links, and long-haul services will cut journey times to Beijing from 24 hours to nine hours.

“This is definitely convenient in terms of time,” said one passenger who gave his name as Mr Kwok and was taking a train to visit his ancestral home in the southern Chinese city of Chaozhou.

More at The Guardian

The Economist ranks the world’s most livable cities

2018-09-11 / Downshift

Each year, the Economist Intelligence Unit release its annual Global Livability Index which measuring the most livable large cities in the world. In this year’s report, Vienna, Austria has succeeded in displacing Melbourne, Australia from the stop spot, which it previously held for a record seven consecutive years.

The Economist says:

The concept of liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual’s lifestyle in 140 cities worldwide. Each city is assigned a score for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories of Stability, Healthcare, Culture and environment, Education and Infrastructure.

The 20 top rankings are populated with cities in Europe (9), Australia (4), Japan (2), New Zealand (1), and Canada (4).

Honolulu was the highest U.S. city at number 23. The next highest American city was Pittsburgh in 32nd position. Manchester was the highest ranked in the UK at number 35.

Here are the top 50:

1. Vienna, Austria

2. Melbourne, Australia

3. Osaka, Japan

4. Calgary, Canada

5. Sydney, Australia

6. Vancouver, Canada

7. (Tied) Tokyo, Japan

7. (Tied) Toronto, Canada

9. Copenhagen, Denmark

10. Adelaide, Australia

The world’s safest countries to visit

2018-06-27 / Downshift

The Gallop organization, a research firm based in the USA, asked citizens of 142 countries about their confidence in local policing, feelings of safety while walking alone and personal experiences of crime.

Gallup interviewed more than 148,000 people for the 2018 report. Gallup’s rankings are based on residents’ own sense of security.

1. Singapore

2. (tied) Finland, Iceland, and Norway

5. (tied) Hong Kong and Uzbekistan

7. (tied) Canada and Switzerland

9. Indonesia

10. (tied) Denmark, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Austria, China, Netherlands, Egypt

More at CNN