Executive Director's Message

The past year was full of challenges to the Travel Industry Authority (TIA). We were busy establishing the Executive Office to make early preparations for the operation of TIA and implementation of the new regulatory regime. Before my appointment to the office, a great deal of preparatory work had been done by various committees, such as formulating the governance framework and work plans for TIA, establishing internal administrative, personnel, accounting, financial management, stores, staff remuneration packages, and procurement rules and procedures. Preparatory work also included formulating the subsidiary legislation, codes of conduct, guidelines as well as directives. Efforts were made in accomplishing administrative tasks, such as procuring stores and equipment and establishing an information technology system to support the office operation, formulating strategies, time frame and procedures for staff recruitment. In addition, we had liaison with various parties, including visits to the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong (TIC) and Travel Agents Registry (TAR) for familiarising with their respective business processes, workflows and systems to plan for smooth transitional arrangements.

In the coming year, we will be working on the disciplinary and licensing frameworks to prepare TIA for taking over the trade regulatory and licensing functions from TIC and TAR respectively for the full implementation of the new regulatory regime. We will also consult the trade regarding the subsidiary legislation as well as codes of conduct, guidelines and directives.

I would like to convey my sincere thanks to colleagues in TIA for their careful thoughts and astute judgement and observations, and to various government agencies, public and private corporations and in particular, the Tourism Commission, TAR and TIC, for their staunch support and timely assistance. In the coming year, my colleagues and I will strive to do our very best to enable a smooth and efficient transition to prepare for TIA’s full implementation of the new regulatory regime in 2022.