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Hong Kong Food Festival

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2014 Hong Kong Food Festival

The Hong Kong Food Festival (Chinese:香港冬日美食節) is a food festival organised by the Hong Kong Asia Exhibition (Holdings) Limited, held annually (usually in December around Christmas) at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, selling and promoting a variety kinds of food, drinks, snacks and many more. There are different zones for various kind of customers.

The first Hong Kong Festival was held in 2003 and 2015 is its 13th year. It is one of the highlight events of the year, especially as it is held during Christmas. The organiser aims to bring happiness and warmth to all the visitors by making the event like a carnival. Also, the organiser intended to boost Hong Kong economy.

During the past 13 years, the number of visitors and booths have been increasing. In 2012, over a million of people took part in the event. In 2015 there will be around 1300 booths. Throughout the years, the Festival has become a leisure and holiday event for Hong Kong people.

History

The first Hong Kong Food Festival was organized in the year 2003, where at the time Hong Kong was suffering under the epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome(SARS). Due to the epidemic, people’s willingness of consumption decrease and the local market was at a drought. To stimulate consumption, the organizer, Hongkong-Asia Exhibition (Holdings) Ltd organized both the Hong Kong Food Festival and Hong Kong Mega Showcase in December, near Christmas. By holding both exhibition near the holidays, the organizer aims not only to encourage local consumption and stimulate the economy, but also to bring the joy of holidays to Hong Kong through a carnival style exhibition, so as to revitalize the atmosphere in Hong Kong at that time.

Theme and Past trends

The first exhibition was a success and thus it kept the theme of “carnival” for all the later years. It was promoted as a food carnival of celebration towards the upcoming Christmas with happiness and satisfaction.

Over the course of 12 years there has been significant increase in number of visitors, including foreign visitors. According to statistic from the 2014 Hong Kong Food Festival, the total visitors over the period of 5 days reached 1.21 million people, accounting to a 15% increase comparing to the year 2013. While among all visitors, 83.7% of the visitor are 2.8% are from South East Asia, 3.6% are from European and American Countries and 1.7% from other Asia countries. Most participants are families as recorded, with 52% of them among all visitors. The other half consist of students, couple and trade buyers with similar percentages.

Activities

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Cooking tutorials within the fair

Hong Kong Food Festival provides a large variety of activities related to food for the participants. It includes large scale cuisine exhibitions and cookery demonstration. There are booths on different types of food and beverage, like dessert, vegetarian food as well as wine. Visitors can purchase luxurious food and seafood such as oysters, lobsters and abalones at a low price. In order to enhance the people's’ incentive of purchasing, exhibitors offer discount and special activities. For instance, on the 12th Hong Kong Food Festival, special activities like free degust of bubble-like fusion ice-cream for the first 100 visitors, and using extremely low price ($1) to buy a brown crab were arranged. In addition, the organizer invites celebrities such as renowned chef and artists as the special guests of the Star Kitchen. They share culinary tips to the audiences and some of them also introduce some unusual cuisine, like homemade Japanese pancake Okonomiyaki, and vegetarian meals. Professionals are also invited to give talks on the topics related. As people are more concerning their health these days, speeches on regimen and health are delivered. Apart from Star Kitchen, workshops are also organized. It delivers an opportunity for the participants to make cuisine and beverage by themselves. For example, there were DIY workshops on beer brewing, latte art, cookies baking and cocktails making.

Hong Kong Food Festival 2015

The Hong Kong Food Festival 2015 is going to be held from the 24th to 28th December at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, hall 3. It will be opened from 10am to 9pm. On the last day, it will end sooner at 7pm. The price of the tickets is HK$20 per person on the first four day and HK$10 per person on the last day.

In total, 10 theme sections will be set up with about 1300 booths. Visitors can find food and beverage from over 10 countries like Korea, Japan and Singapore. On the other hand, the Gastronomic Paradise @ Star Kitchen will be reintroduced this year. There will be sharings on some useful cooking tips and demonstrations by professionals.

Theme zones

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Lobsters sold at the fair

There are in total of 10 theme zones in Hong Kong Food Festival 2015, which include Premium brands Zone, South East Asia Favour Zone, Healthy Green and Vegetarian Food Zone, New Year Food ,Daily Essentials & Quality Dried Seafood Zone, Taste of Korea, Staple Diet of Japan and Worldwide Food & Trading Zone. Luxe Culinary Pavilion, International Wine and Deluxe Ingredient Zone and Party Food & Sweet Pavilion are the five brand new theme zones this year.

Related Events

Apart from the Hong Kong Food Festival, there are a lot of dining events throughout the year. For instance, the Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival provides a chance for visitors to enjoy high-end wines and food. The Hong Kong Food Expo lets visitors taste different cuisines from the East to the West. Also, there are in total of two Beer festivals in Hong Kong each year, which are Lan Kwai Fong Music and Beer Fest and German Bierfest. Hong Kong citizens and oversea visitors can enjoy good beer and German food in these two festivals.

References

  1. 香港冬日美食節 http://www.food-expo.com.hk/index.html
  2. Hong Kong Food Festival 2014 Visitor Segmentation http://www.food-expo.com.hk/%E8%A7%80%E7%9C%BE%E4%BE%86%E6%BA%90.html
  3. 文匯報 <<美食節割價衝刺 要錢唔要貨>> http://paper.wenweipo.com/2014/12/30/HK1412300017.htm
  4. 香港美酒佳餚巡禮 http://www.discoverhongkong.com/tc/see-do/events-festivals/highlight-events/wine-dine-festival.jsp
  5. Hong Kong Food Expo http://www.hktdc.com/fair/hkfoodexpo-en/HKTDC-Food-Expo.html