Hong Kong Tourism Board has capitalised upon the growing use of PDA by business travellers by today launching a
PDA based leisure guide.  The guide will provide interactive tourist
information whilst on the move.  The software is available at
www.discoverhongkong.com and it can then be downloaded for free onto the
user’s personal Blackberry or PDA.Visitors will be able to search for shops, restaurants, bars,
entertainment and sight-seeing attractions, as well as upcoming events.
The search engine can locate over 5,200 shops and restaurants accredited
by the Quality Tourism Services (QTS) scheme and users can surf these by
product, cuisine type or location.

The software also includes a map, which can zoom down into exact street
names and buildings. What’s more, users will be able to identify their
location on the map using their PDA’s Global Positioning System (GPS). The
guide has a human voice audio demonstration to teach basic Cantonese
phrases to visitors to Hong Kong.

The launch of this new service will be especially useful as HKTB gears up
for its recently announced ‘2006 Discover Hong Kong Year’ campaign, which
will include many new events and attractions.  In 2004, Hong Kong
attracted 3.41 million business visitors to the city, which equates to
about a quarter of all overnight arrival figures. These business people
generated $18.6 billion (approx: £1.3 billion) in tourism spending in the
last year.

The service will be available for download from 5th May 2005 and can be
found at www.discoverhongkong.com.
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