Kai Tak Sports Park’s performance targets may need a more practical review because counting event days does not capture the time required to prepare and maintain a venue, Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law said.
Law told RTHK in an exclusive interview, also reported by Ming Pao, that the indicators were set years ago and measure success partly by the number of days sports events are held at the park’s venues. But preparing for a match can involve laying, replacing and maintaining turf, with better pitch quality requiring more maintenance time.
The park opened in 2025 and has since hosted major sporting events, concerts and other activities. Law said its contribution should be assessed beyond ticket sales, pointing to merchandise, retail, catering and other business around events, including activity at Kai Tak’s retail and dining outlets.
She also said international events had brought visitors who stayed for several days, benefiting hotels and dining across Hong Kong. Those are Law’s assessments of the park’s economic effect; the interview reports do not provide separate spending figures or an independent measurement of that impact.
Law said the authorities would consider whether to examine the indicators more flexibly, with economic benefits and other factors taken into account when judging whether the park is performing well. That would make the assessment broader than a simple total of sports days, while still leaving venue upkeep as part of the practical calculation.
Her comments form part of a wider preference for concentrating Hong Kong’s sporting resources. In the RTHK interview, Law said the territory should focus in the short to medium term on top-level single-sport international events, such as world championships, rather than pursuing an Olympic bid, which she described as requiring a national decision.
She said the National Games had demonstrated Hong Kong’s ability to host a series of high-level competitions and that future efforts could focus on major events in individual sports, including badminton, volleyball, table tennis, fencing and rugby sevens.
The immediate question for Kai Tak is therefore not simply how many days sport is booked, but how those days are weighed against the time needed to keep the venues ready and the wider activity they generate. Law’s remarks point to a possible review; no formal revision of the targets has been reported.