Ms Laura Li and her cousin Diego Deng were among younger visitors to Hong Kong who preferred to follow walking guides on social media rather than join tour groups or shop in luxury stores.
The Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book, is the must-have app for China's Generation Z - the 280 million people born between 1995 and 2010 - to explore Hong Kong neighbourhoods with its travel tips to tourists. The low-budget travellers coming to Hong Kong from mainland China contrast with the once cash-rich and luxury-spending mainland tourists who used to visit the city in the years before the pandemic.
Underscoring the now cost-conscious new type of mainland tourist, Ms Li and her cousin opted to stay in a hotel in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, just across the border, and travel back to Hong Kong to take in the sights during the day.