Hotel group axes the local touch that misfired
An online marketing campaign to promote business at an international luxury hotel chain by satirising locals in Hong Kong has angered the tourism trade and prompted a stream of critical comments online.
Launched several weeks ago by Langham Hotels as part of its "Big Deal" campaign to lure overseas visitors to Hong Kong, the four video shorts show confused and overwhelmed westerners in Hong Kong.
They appear lost, are being harassed by fake-watch sellers, or end up with food such as chicken feet congee in a dai pai dong. The videos, which were supposed to be cheeky, humorous and satirical, backfired after many viewers found them offensive. They were pulled after just the first two shorts appeared. The last video was supposed to dispel the misconceptions portrayed in the first three episodes.
"The videos do not reflect real life in Hong Kong. Other aspects should be used to promote Hong Kong to visitors," a Tourism Board spokesman said.
Bloggers were even more critical, quickly dubbing the videos "Avoid dirty locals: stay at a Langham hotel".
One of the comments read: "Langham Place: where white people go to pretend they're not surrounded by filthy Chinese. Is that about right?"
Produced by Prosperity (SEHK: 0803, announcements, news) Research, which specialises in online marketing, the videos received mixed reviews in Hong Kong when they were shown to focus groups.
A hotel group representative said: "We test-marketed it in Australia and Europe and the videos didn't go down too badly."
Langham's vice-president of sales and marketing, Bob van den Oord, said: "The `Big Deal' was designed to attract overseas tourists to Hong Kong in these difficult times. It was never our intention to cast Hong Kong in a negative light. We are sorry that the satirical tone of the videos was misunderstood in some circles. We have learned a valuable lesson in communicating sensitively in a social marketing environment."
watch em b4 they take em down