South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) (12/18/17) by Oliver Chou

Although online ticket sales and e-payments are not surging in Hong Kong as much as in mainland China, their performance remains solid on data protection and the human transaction experience, according to top government officials. The officials say residents' preference for purchasing tickets in person at the box office, and a longer history of credit card sales, are partly responsible for Hong Kong's more traditional approach. "We have taken note of [the mainland's digital ticketing] strides and are enhancing Urbtix, our ticketing system since 1984, while examining payment methods for the future," says Vivian Yeung Wing-kam with Hong Kong's Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD). "We saw a major revamp in 2014 at Cityline, our service partner since 2007, such as increasing the online capacity 10-fold and introducing a new mobile app, but the consumption pattern remains steady." Official numbers calculate in-person box office purchases comprised almost 50 percent of ticket sales for LCSD-organized events in the past four years, with online bookings constituting about 20 percent. Yeung acknowledges considerable time must pass for consumers to change their ticket-purchasing habits, but she says online booking and e-payment "are definitely emerging trends worthy of pursuit," citing 500,000 downloads of the My Urbtix app since 2014 as a sign of the potential. Yeung is not forecasting any major changes in payment methods before the current contract with Cityline expires in 2021.

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