The SHTM has recently released the PolyU Tourist Satisfaction Index (PolyU TSI). This year's PolyU TSI stood at 72.61, indicating that inbound tourists are generally satisfied with the services they received during visits to Hong Kong.

Spearheaded by Professor Haiyan Song, Associate Dean and Chair Professor of Tourism at the SHTM, the PolyU TSI measures inbound tourists' satisfaction levels across six tourism-related sectors and integrates them into an overall index. The sectors that have consistently excelled in service performance in Hong Kong are transportation and attractions. Immigration services, hotels, restaurants and retail shops have also received generally positive results and managed to exceed tourists' expectations.

Although the PolyU TSI for 2011 is slightly lower than those in the two previous years, the overall score has remained fairly consistent over time and remains above 70 index points. This relatively high and consistent score indicates that, overall, Hong Kong's tourism industry is competitive and performs consistently well across comparable sectors. The PolyU TSI enables Hong Kong to determine its performance and competitiveness relative to other international tourism destinations, thus allowing it to identify strategic areas for further improvement.

The PolyU TSI not only evaluates service sector competitiveness over time but also across international tourism destinations, allowing meaningful benchmarking. Adopting the same Index system, the TSI for Macau and Shenzhen for the same period was 68.5 and 65.1 respectively. By adopting a universal indicator of performance such as the PolyU TSI, it affords destinations the ability to identify areas for further improvement and implement relevant strategies to enhance tourist satisfaction levels.

Since its launch in 2009, this pioneering project has served as a comprehensive system to provide authorities and industry practitioners with much needed information for decision making and planning. The Index has been adopted by Macau and Shenzhen to measure visitor satisfaction of their cities.

For more information, please e-mail Professor Haiyan Song at hmsong@polyu.edu.hk.