Tours showcase HK brands

2025-12-28 10:18 Last Updated At：10:18

Imagine being able to step back in time to a 1950s grocery store where the product packaging is full of nostalgic charm, pastries are priced at just $0.68 and you can purchase a mooncake for $2.

A local bakery group has turned this into reality by opening an experience centre at its Tai Po factory, replicating its first store on Shanghai Street. It was built in support of the Government's “Industrial Brand Tourism” project and took about six months to set up.

Click to Gallery

Time capsule: A local bakery group opens an experience centre at its Tai Po factory, replicating its first store on Shanghai Street in support of the Government’s “Industrial Brand Tourism” project. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Nostalgic ways: Tourists experience stir-frying lotus seed paste during a tour of the centre. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Baking fun: Tourists try their hand at making almond cakes during the tour. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Creating memories: Tourist Ms Zhang (second right) says making almond cakes was a meaningful experience. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Unique experience: Tourist Mr Lin says he usually goes sightseeing and rarely visits factories, so this tour was interesting for him. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Promoting craftmanship: Kee Wah Bakery Executive Director Karlson Wong says through “Industrial Brand Tourism”, more people will get to know the brand and the traditional pastries of Hong Kong. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Business boom: Travel Industry Council Executive Director Fanny Yeung points out that the tours include a shopping component, which contributes to boosting the local economy. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

More Images

Time capsule: A local bakery group opens an experience centre at its Tai Po factory, replicating its first store on Shanghai Street in support of the Government’s “Industrial Brand Tourism” project. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Nostalgic ways: Tourists experience stir-frying lotus seed paste during a tour of the centre. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Baking fun: Tourists try their hand at making almond cakes during the tour. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Creating memories: Tourist Ms Zhang (second right) says making almond cakes was a meaningful experience. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Unique experience: Tourist Mr Lin says he usually goes sightseeing and rarely visits factories, so this tour was interesting for him. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Promoting craftmanship: Kee Wah Bakery Executive Director Karlson Wong says through “Industrial Brand Tourism”, more people will get to know the brand and the traditional pastries of Hong Kong. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Business boom: Travel Industry Council Executive Director Fanny Yeung points out that the tours include a shopping component, which contributes to boosting the local economy. Image source: www.news.gov.hk

Memorable experience

In early December, the experience centre welcomed its first tour group. The docent explained the various exhibits in the centre, such as simulating baking pastries using an oil drum during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, and sharing the story of the group’s transformation from a grocery store to a bakery.

Tourists also experienced stir-frying lotus seed paste and felt the weight of traditional wedding cakes as well as became pastry chefs by making almond cakes during the tour.

“Today, experiencing making almond cakes was really good and meaningful. If I visit Hong Kong again, I will definitely participate in similar activities,” tourist Ms Zhang said.

Another tourist Mr Lin remarked: “We usually travel to see the sights, but we rarely visit factories. This was our first time doing that, and I found it really interesting.”

Promoting craftmanship

Kee Wah Bakery Executive Director Karlson Wong said that through “Industrial Brand Tourism”, more people will get to know the brand and the traditional pastries of Hong Kong.

“It is a great opportunity and another platform for us to help tell that story and engage with more tourists that are visiting Hong Kong,” he explained. “Our vision for the company is for the world to know and to love our Hong Kong traditional pastry and confectionery products. Our hope is that our Hong Kong's own traditional products can also spread to all corners of the world.”

Economy boost

The “Industrial Brand Tourism” project is implemented by the Travel Industry Council to showcase the city’s industrial brand stories through tours organised by the travel trade, creating hotspots for visitors to tour, experience and shop. The council believes the project embodies the Government’s goal of “tourism is everywhere” and helps tell the world the good stories of Hong Kong.

The council’s Executive Director Fanny Yeung pointed out that the tours include a shopping component, allowing visitors to purchase exclusive products available only at the factory, which contributes to boosting the local economy.

She added that while tourists come to Hong Kong to experience “Industrial Brand Tourism”, they will also visit the traditional sightseeing spots. This helps to prolong their stay in Hong Kong.

Currently, brands including Yakult, Kee Wah and Lee Kum Kee are participating in the project. Ms Yeung revealed that the trial phase will continue until March next year, with the possibility of more brands being introduced by then.

Faithful return to Bethlehem and Pope Leo XIV celebrates his first Christmas Eve Mass at St. Peter's

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Thousands of people flocked to Bethlehem's Manger Square on Christmas Eve as families there and at other sites across the Holy Land heralded a much-needed boost of holiday spirit, after two years of subdued celebrations because of the war in Gaza.

At the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV presided over his first Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. In his homily, he marveled at the “wisdom” of the Christmas story — an infant Jesus born to save mankind.

“In the face of the suffering of the poor, (God) sends one who is defenseless to be the strength to rise again,” the first U.S. pope told a packed basilica.

Bethlehem, where Christians believe Jesus was born, had canceled Christmas celebrations during the war. But on Wednesday, the giant Christmas tree returned to Manger Square, temporarily replacing the wartime nativity scene of baby Jesus surrounded by rubble and barbed wire in a homage to Gaza's suffering.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Catholic leader in the Holy Land, kicked off this year's celebrations during the traditional procession from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, calling for “a Christmas full of light.”

Pizzaballa said he came bearing greetings from Gaza's tiny Christian community, where he held a pre-Christmas Mass on Sunday. In the devastation, he saw a desire to rebuild.

“We, all together, we decide to be the light, and the light of Bethlehem is the light of the world,” he told thousands of people, Christian and Muslim.

Despite the holiday cheer, the impact of the war in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is acute, especially in Bethlehem, where around 80% of the Muslim-majority city’s residents depend upon tourism-related businesses, according to the local government.

There were only a handful of foreigners but some residents said they are starting to see signs of change as tourism slowly returns.

“Today is a day of joy, a day of hope, the beginning of the return of normal life here,” said Bethlehem resident Georgette Jackaman, a tour guide. She and her husband, Michael Jackaman, another guide, are from Christian Bethlehem families that stretch back generations.

This is the first real Christmas celebration for their two children, aged 2 1/2 and 10 months.

During the war, the Jackamans pivoted to create a website selling Palestinian handicrafts to support others who lost their livelihoods. The unemployment rate in the city jumped from 14% to 65%, Bethlehem Mayor Maher Nicola Canawati said earlier this month.

A visitor from France, Mona Riewer, said being in Bethlehem helped her appreciate the meaning of the holiday.

“Christmas is like hope in very dark situations,” she said.

Despite the Gaza ceasefire that began in October, tensions remain high in the West Bank, with Israeli military raids in what it describes as a crackdown on militants. Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have reached their highest level since the United Nations humanitarian office started collecting data in 2006.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in parts of the territory, including Bethlehem.

As poverty and unemployment have soared, about 4,000 people have left Bethlehem in search of work, the mayor said — part of a worrying trend for Christians, who are leaving the region in droves. Christians account for less than 2% of the West Bank’s roughly 3 million residents.

Fadi Zoughbi, who previously worked overseeing logistics for tour groups, said his children were ecstatic to see marching bands streaming through Bethlehem's streets, Palestinian flags and tartan draped on their bagpipes. For the past two years, the scouts marched silently as a protest against the war.

Irene Kirmiz, who grew up in Bethlehem and lives in Ramallah, said the scout parade is among her favorite Christmas traditions. Her 15-year-old daughter plays the tenor drum with the Ramallah scouts.

But her family had to wake up at 5 a.m. to arrive for the parade, after waited about three hours at Israeli checkpoints. The drive previously took 40 minutes without the checkpoints that have increasingly made travel difficult for Palestinians, she said.

In the past two years, the heads of churches in Jerusalem urged congregations to forgo “any unnecessarily festive activities.” They encouraged priests and the faithful to focus on Christmas’ spiritual meaning and called for “fervent prayers for a just and lasting peace for our beloved Holy Land.”

Santas were everywhere as the traditional parade returned to Nazareth in northern Israel, revered by Christians as the place where the archangel Gabriel announced to Mary she would give birth to Jesus.

The hilltop town filled with children. Some starred in live Nativity scenes, and others lined the route waiting for floats and candy under a bright, warm sun.

Incense wafted over pews packed for Christmas Eve Mass at Gaza's only Catholic church, where festive children's programs had also taken place. The Holy Family compound was hit by fragments from an Israeli shell in July, killing three people. Israel called it an accident and expressed regret.

On the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, hundreds of congregants planned to return for Christmas Masses at a Greek Orthodox church where, in June, 25 people were killed in a suicide attack blamed on Islamic State militants. On Tuesday, they gathered to light a neon image of a Christmas tree in its courtyard.

At St. Peter's, an estimated 6,000 people worshipped inside the vast basilica decorated with poinsettias, while another 5,000 watched the Mass on giant screens in the rain-soaked piazza outside.

The celebration, with readings and the homily in a variety of languages, including Latin, started with children from different continents putting flowers by the figure of the baby Jesus.

Leo will return to the basilica for Mass on Christmas Day followed by his traditional blessing from the loggia.

People around the world enjoyed Christmas traditions on Wednesday beyond houses of worship, too, from ice-skating in New York City to charity swimming in cold sea waters off Northern Ireland.

Along Florida’s Space Coast, Santas hopped on surfboards, not sleighs. Hundreds of surfers dressed as Santa took to the waves off Cocoa Beach in what has become an annual tradition for the past 17 years.

The Santa-surfing brought to the beach thousands of spectators dressed in Christmas costumes who danced to live music and took part in a holiday costume contest.

The event raises money for the Florida Surf Museum and a nonprofit that helps people with cancer.

Associated Press journalists Nicole Winfield in Vatican City; Abby Sewell in Beirut; Ariel Schalit in Nazareth, Israel; Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

Tours showcase HK brands

HK