Review: Hong Kong 720º on iPhone

Hong Kong 720º LogoToday Thomas B. (@thomashk) introduced me to an iPhone application, Hong Kong 720º, released by the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB). It is designed to promote Hong Kong attractions while assisting visitors with locating famous tourist spots, and getting a virtual tour of the attractions before they arrive to help plan their visits to Hong Kong. Best of all this application is available in the iTunes App Store for free.

The application contains QuickTime VR tours of all the major tourist locations, including Google Map of the location, English and Chinese phrase for the tourist to show taxi drivers or others when they are lost, recommended travel directions, and photo gallery of the tourist attraction.

Additional to tourist attraction information, it also contains tourist promotional videos of Hong Kong, locations of the Visitor Centers around the city, important telephone numbers for any travelers.

It is very encouraging to see an Asian government body adapt new technology to promote a location to the world.

This application was released by HKTB back in May 31, 2009, and since then there were 2 updates. Unfortunately, I cannot find any mention of this application on the HKTB web site, and none of the first two result pages from a Google search included pages from HKTB web site. When I went directly to HKTB web site the only page the mention the iPhone resulted is a 404 Error (page not found).

On one hand it is good to see that HKTB spent the effort (and money) to create the application, but it is unfortunate, they they did not promote the application; not even on their own web site.

Hong Kong 720 - Information Hong Kong 720 - Phrase Hong Kong 720 - Google Map

2 Replies to “Review: Hong Kong 720º on iPhone”

  1. Very interesting for the tourists and why not, local people as well. I am looking forward get Iphone, so many possibilities :PCongratulations for your blog.

  2. Yes, this HKTB iPhone application may be useful for locals, but I believe the benefits for local is very minor, unless HKTB more timely information like local offers by the various venues (ie. Ocean Park and Disney, etc.).Seeing that HKTB doesn't even border promoting the application I don't think the timely special offer updates will become part of the application.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.