Cover The intersection between sports and travel is clearer than ever. Bookings for ‘active travel’ are up nearly 40 per cent globally (Photo: Getty images)
The intersection between sports and travel is clearer than ever. Bookings for ‘active travel’ are up nearly 40 per cent globally (Photo: Getty images)
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Bookings for ‘active travel’ are up nearly 40 per cent globally, and Hong Kong is very much part of that statistic. Sport tourism has become one of the city’s favourite travel trends, whether residents are booking holidays based on their next Hyrox race or marathon or a new adventure activity
When you ask a Hongkonger what they’re doing for their next holiday, it’s no longer surprising when the answer comes with a start time attached.
New data from Trip.com Group shows “active travel” or “sportcations” have become one of the fastest-growing categories in global tourism, with the value of bookings globally up almost 40 per cent year-on-year and searches for sports experiences climbing more than 30 per cent. Some of the most popular activities are diving—it tops the charts among travellers in South Korea, Malaysia, Germany, Spain, Italy and France—and cycling, which leads the pack in Japan. Active travellers in Taiwan and Thailand, as well as Hong Kong, are most excited about skydiving; for our city, where people spend most of their year at a desk, it’s an interesting insight into a population that runs toward adrenaline, not R&R.
Read more: Siobhan Haughey, Ryan Choi: Hong Kong prepares for its highest-stakes Asian Games yet
Over the last year or so, there has, of course, also been the massive rush to book Hyrox holidays; the recent controversy at the Beijing event is unlikely to discourage competitors from booking their race-cation for the next event. That appetite is reflected in how people plan trips around the region’s race calendar. Airlines have caught on: HK Express now markets flights bundled specifically to regional marathons—Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Jeju, Taipei, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur—with the race as the main attraction, rather than as a side activity on a city break and the finisher’s medal as part of the pitch.
Some of these runners catch the bug on home turf. The Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon—classified by World Athletics (the former IAAF) as a Gold Label Road Race, and one of Asia’s largest races—draws around 70,000 runners across its marathon, half-marathon and 10K each year. That’s a huge base of people who train through a Hong Kong summer to hit a personal best in February; once you’ve done that, flying out to chase the next start line in Osaka or Seoul is a fairly natural next step. The city’s run club scene has been growing, and the wider boom in hybrid fitness racing like Hyrox has added another layer of amateur Hong Kong athletes travelling to compete.
It’s not just running competitions that people are flying for. The wider destination data tells a similar story. Thailand, mainland China, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia are picking up the most active-travel bookings across categories like cycling, climbing and water sports—all short- or medium-haul from Hong Kong, all increasingly offering the chance to do something hard as opposed to nothing at all. Thailand in particular shows up as a leading destination for diving, cycling, water sports and adventure activities, which suggests people are now stacking two or three disciplines into a single trip. A long weekend used to mean a beach and a spa treatment; increasingly it means a bike rental, a dive certification and a trail run booked before even deciding where to stay.
The region’s race and adventure calendar keeps expanding— new marathons, new fitness competitions, new dive and skydive locations and certifications—and Hongkongers love to be current, so expect Hong Kong to keep turning up disproportionately in this kind of data. People who live here have never needed much of an excuse to travel; they just increasingly want an adrenaline rush while they do it. Book the flight, sure. But check the race calendar first.
Pete Laverick is a sports and lifestyle journalist for Tatler Hong Kong. A former professional rugby player, he brings an athlete’s perspective to his coverage of the city’s sports and fitness scene. A committed fitness enthusiast, Pete is always testing something new—from Hyrox to marathons and triathlons—writing with the first-hand insight of someone who has lived at the top level of sport. He also has a standing invitation from Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeannie Buss to watch the Lakers at the Crypto.com Arena if he makes it to California.
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