Why I hate the terms Hidden Gems and Secret Spots

4 Jan

Written By Jamie Lloyd

in relation to Tourism in Hong Kong - such a cliche!

Learn more | Visit the excellent Hong Kong Tourism Board Website today

Me Jamie, English and 52 years living in Hong Kong and I know the know the place - I personally completed 2,324 Private Tours (6,000+ guests) from 2011 - 2020 and was considered one of the finest Private Tour Guides in Asia.

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Why I really hate the terms Hidden Gems and Secret Spots in relation to Tourism in Hong Kong

Hidden Germs in Hong Kong | Secret Spots in Hong Kong

Two of the worst cliches in the world of Tourism

Social Media has significantly transformed the way travellers discover new places, leading to an overuse of terms like hidden gems and secret spots. This trend seems to have been overlooked by numerous tour companies in Hong Kong and worldwide.

Ever since Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, X (formerly Twitter) and other social media sites became mainstream, literally hundreds of millions (if not BILLIONS) of photographs and video’s of tourist attractions and peoples personal holidays snaps have been uploaded to the web, basically completely destroying any sense of joy and wonderment at stumbling across something amazing on your holiday (I should point out there are exceptions!)

Here in Hong Kong, every Tom, Dick and Harry starting with the Hong Kong Tourism Board likes to use these awful cliches and they became cliches because for the most part people cannot be bothered to think about the message they are trying to convey, with a bit of research there are plenty of other phrases that can be used to set you apart from everyone else.

As a retired Private Tour Guide with 2,324 tours under my belt (and who has lived in Hong Kong for 52 years) I have lost count of the number of people who requested going to various sites and such because they had heard it was a hidden gem or a secret spot and quite simply when you are doing a 3,4,5,6 or 8 hour tour, going off to this hidden gem in general is a complete and utter waste of time as there are very few places in any city which have that wow factor and why bother travelling 30 minutes there, 30 minutes back for an explanation and a snap with your smart phone. it does not make a lot of sense to me! I should point out that I always gave my guests the option to visit “the place” whilst pointing out the timing factor.

I must also point out that there are tour companies in Hong Kong that can put together an Instagram themed tour for you and will have no problem at all calling them hidden gems or secret spots!

The other reality that I had to explain to my guests was that the vast majority of holiday images are taken with a smartphone with questionable image quality and naturally every one uses filters to give the image that wow factor and when you see the hidden gem or secret spot in person you are really disappointed! particularly if it is a cloudy day.

In Hong Kong a friend of mine did a blog post in 2021 with this headline

Choi Hung Estate – the Most Instagrammable Public Housing in Hong Kong

Type it into Google and see the images.

The images have very vibrant colours and look cool, but in person on a cloudy (or sunny day) the colours are very drab and it is a very deflating moment! but it does not stop hundreds of mainly young people trekking there every day and it is quite a hike on public transport from downtown so to speak.

If you look at the header image of this blog post which I took you will see that it is far too vibrant and that’s because I put the image through Photoshop, in reality the colors are quite drab.

…. and this leads me back to how social media has changed tourism.

Note the jolly nice image below of the monkey sat on the fence that I took.. it absolutely is a secret spot (unless you live in Hong Kong!) but it is in a very remote spot which is accessible only if you have a car and trust me these monkeys (Rhesus Macaque) are really nasty buggers and not to be messed with, they have no fear of humans and will try and grab anything you are carrying… oh and did I mention they hunt in packs? and they are quite aggressive and will bite you and yes, because of social media a lot of people want to be taken there so they can snap those “cute” monkeys…… aaaaaaaggggghhhhhhh!

My thanks to Amy owner of Hong Kong Greeters who kindly took me to Monkey Mountain in her car just so I could get some pictures of these monkeys.

My favourite alternative term for hidden gems and secret spots was nailed by Atlas Obscura, the quirky Travel and Tourism site who simply say “cool and unusual things to do in Hong Kong” and yes, that makes them stand out in a very crowded field.

Learn more about Hong Kong Greeters

Golden Hill (Monkey Mountain), Shatin, NT, Hong Kong | One of Hong Kong’s so called “Hidden Gems”

In my mind, there are no secret spots or hidden gems in Hong Kong because of social media but the really great private tour guides in Hong Kong (my friends) will know places that are not overrun by smart phone toting gangs of young people looking for their 20 seconds of fame which are relatively accessible over the course of a tour and which have that wow factor.

Finally I should point out that there is one secret spot and hidden gem (sorry!) in Hong Kong that offers quite simply the most magnificent city view in the world (I am not kidding) located at Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island it is rarely visited by your average tourist | visitor because it requires a 20 minute walk there and 20 minutes back from the Peak Tower where most people go. There are plenty of Tripadvisor reviews about this place and many blog posts but there is a catch, the vast majority of people who go there stop at the wrong spot, the view is great but it is not the spot!

If you have a tour with one of my friends you can mention that you would like to see “Jamie’s spot at the Peak” and they will smile and nod…. I visited it for the first time on January 3rd 1972 and have been there over 6,000 times (in all weathers) it is my favourite place in the world.

I should point out that the 2nd best city view in the world is on Barker Road at Victoria Peak next to Jack Ma’s mansion, see below and amazingly almost NO ONE goes there which is odd as Barker Road hosts the homes of many billionaires and some very, very important people.

Again, if you want to visit this spot on Barker Road, book a tour with Amy at Hong Kong Greeters, she has a car (there is no public transport on Barker Road) as it is quite a long road, it is such an interesting place to visit.

The truly amazing view from Barker Road at Victoria Peak and almost NO visitors | tourists know about this place.

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