Hong Kong businesses are offering residents high ticket rewards if they agree to get vaccinated.
Vaccinated residents can win a Tesla, free airline tickets, and a year’s worth of stays at the Shangri-La, a 5-star hotel.
Only 15% of Hong Kong’s population has been vaccinated thus far.
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In case a free $1.4 million apartment in the world’s most expensive housing market wasn’t enough incentive to get vaccinated, perhaps a year’s worth of free stays at the five-star Shangri-La Hotel will be.
Both the apartment and the year-long Shangri-La credit are among the many perks vaccinated Hong Kong residents can enter to win, the South China Morning Post reported. Also on the list? A Tesla, thousands of free airline tickets, a $16,000 prepaid credit card, and a “private party” on a Cathay Pacific-operated Airbus A321neo.
Per the Post, the total value of the available rewards exceeds $14 million. The eligibility terms differ depending on the perk but are exclusively available to vaccinated individuals.
The rewards have been donated by various Hong Kong-based companies, business people, and business chambers, per the Post. For example, the philanthropic arm of property developer Sino Group is donating the $1.4 million apartment, while Goodman Hong Kong is donating the Tesla Model 3, which is valued at $64,000. The Hong Kong Air Authority is behind the 50,000 free airline tickets, and the Shangri-La Group — which operates more than 100 locations globally with nightly rates starting around $300 — is providing the year’s worth of hotel stays.
The effectiveness of the prizes in compelling people to get vaccinated remains to be seen. Alvin Cheng, a travel guide writer in his mid-30s who lives in and grew up in Hong Kong, told Insider he got the vaccine, but not because of any of the prizes being offered.
“None of the perks makes me want to get vaccinated,” Cheng said. “I got vaccinated just for myself. I got it now just because I had a surgery and recovered from some of the side effects.”
“For other people I know, they don’t consider those rewards too much,” Cheng said.
As Katie Warren previously reported for Insider, the perk rollout comes as the Hong Kong government turns to businesses to entice residents to get the COVID-19 vaccine — and as public interest in getting the vaccine remains low.
More than 2.6 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the city to date, with 1.1 million people — about 15% of the total population — fully vaccinated, according to data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. For comparison, 42% of people in the US and the UK respectively are now fully vaccinated.
Because reception to the vaccine in Hong Kong has been slower than expected, the city is sitting on a surplus of 840,000 BioNtech vaccines that are set to expire in August, Bloomberg reported in late May. Affecting the slow rollout, per Bloomberg, is a lack of trust in the government and a fear of vaccine side effects.
Jhoan Estrera is a Filipina who has been living in Hong Kong since 2016. Like Cheng, she told Insider she got the vaccine — but not because of the raffle prizes.
“About the perks in Hong Kong, other locals are still not wanting to get vaccinated because of fear,” Estrera said. “I worked as a full time domestic worker and I got vaccinated before the announcement of the perks.”
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