HKSAR has recently announced lifting most of the restrictions on arrivals from overseas. Imagine you were hired by Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) as a marketing intern, you are tasked to recommend HKTB to come up with TWO marketing recommendations to attract overseas visitors to Hong Kong to spend their summer holiday. Apply relevant consumer behavior concepts/theories to support your recommendations and illustrate your understanding of these topics.

 

More controversial has been the role of the U.S. government. Although it discourages cigarette usage at home, it played an active role in opening foreign markets to U.S. tobacco firms. In the 1980 s the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) (the government agency in charge of international trade negotiations) successfully hammered out agreements with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand to end their restrictions on the sale of foreign cigarettes. The USTR attacked foreign countries for utilizing public policies the U.S. government itself had adopted. Taiwan, for example, previously disallowed all cigarette advertising as a means of discouraging cigarette consumption. As a result, the most cigarettes were consumed by adult males in 1986, however, the U.S. government exerted access to its market by U.S. firms. Bowing to this pressure, Taiwan not only opened its market to Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds but also relaxed its regulations on cigarette advertising. These Western firms have focused their marketing efforts on teenagers and females, believing older males will continue to smoke domestic brands. U.S. brands now sell well among those targeted audiences. When Taiwanese health officials tried to strengthen the warning labels on cigarette packages, ban smoking by those under 18 and prohibit vending machine cigarette sales, the USTR counterattacked, claiming these efforts would hurt U.S. tobacco companies. The USTR took similar stances in trade negotiations with Japan, South Korea, and Thailand, threatening these countries with Super 301 retaliation if they did not open their markets to U.S. cigarettes.

 

All in all, the international marketing efforts of U.S. cigarette makers seem to be working. Exports account for about 30 percent of U.S. cigarette production, and the firms" primary target markets - teenagers, females, and the affluent - are purchasing U.S. cigarettes in record numbers. But the controversy over such marketing practices intensified in 2000 , with the initiation of a major effort by the World Health Organization (WHO), a Geneva-based branch of the United Nations, to curb tobacco products. WHO estimated that if current consumption trends continue, 500 million people currently alive will die from tobacco use. It is proposing that all UN member raise tobacco taxes, eliminate cigarette smuggling, and ban tobacco advertising and sponsoring of sporting and music events.