The Covid-19 crisis, which started towards the end of January 2020 in Hong Kong, has had a very big impact on the tourism industry worldwide but mostly locally. And Hong Kong a la carte, just like all other actors within the industry, has suffered a major blow.

Firstly, the suspension of passenger flights led to massive cancellations of tours that had been booked by tourists visiting or transiting via Hong Kong – the core of our business.

Secondly, local social distancing measures in place to stop the virus from progressing such as restrictions limiting the sizes of groups (we went from 10 people to 2 people maximum) finally put an end to all alternative ideas we had put into place such as city tours and activities for local residents.

But we are full of resources at Hong Kong a la carte 😉 and came the idea to create a semi-virtual scavenger hunt (The Holiday Game).

How it works: over a period of 3 weeks, participants have to find clues and complete challenges all over Hong Kong so that they can discover or re-discover its history, culture and heritage while having fun. Once participants are registered, a WhatsApp group is created allowing teams to access clues and challenges and send their answers back to us according to their daily duties and obligations.  

The first edition that took place in July was a big success as people were really eager to do things in the open-air. 38 teams registered and 123 people took part, all came from diverse backgrounds: families, teenagers, teachers, office workers, nannies, and were highly motivated to win the first prize which was a private helicopter ride over Victoria Harbour.

One of our competitors, Clémentine Andrau, kindly agreed to make short videos of the best moments. We thank her very much as these videos really show the essence of the Holiday Game: having fun while discovering Hong Kong!

• The ‘Foot Massage Walking Path’

• The Dancing Water Bowl challenge

• The making of the infamous Peanut Chewy Rice Cake

• The search for the oldest Hong Kong Tram

• The snake soup restaurants

• The Noonday Gun Ceremony